TW: Kudos to Shep Smith for stating fairly succinctly that torture is not gray, it is torture. This topic easily degenerates into self-rightousness. Some commentary is needed and to be clear I do not see the Dems as without shame in this effort although there is no doubt in my mind that the conservatives tend far more to err on the side of sacrificing liberty for even the possibility of greater indirect security. This torture debate appears to have three components:
1) what we did was merely "coercive/enhanced/special/aggressive" interrogation
2) what we did was the result of post 9/11 stress
3) torture works so who cares what our constitution says we will do whatever it takes to protect American interests and lives
Re #1: BS, BS, BS and BS. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, smells like a duck it is a duck. We tortured anyone claiming otherwise is obfuscating because for various reasons they do not want to use items 2 and 3 (e.g. they do not want to say the constitution/laws are bunk hence they need another excuse). The pathetic moving of the goalposts associated with defining torture as exemplified by Cliff May in the embedded piece personifies this cynical and tortuous approach to logic. Note as well how May (reminiscent of how the goalpost for Iraq move around) jumps from saying the American torture regime was not "torture" to saying our motives in "coercively interrogating" were different than say the Viet Cong when they "coercively interrogated" John McCain. So our motives are more noble?
Re #2: This has some validity in mind in that in times of extreme stress governments and societies do things which in retrospect appear wrong or at least ignorant. We all recall the tremendous disorientation post 9/11 when no one really knew where this Al-Qaeda thing was headed. However, disorientation and stress are not excuses for crimes. As I have said before 9/11 was exactly why I shuddered when W. Bush was elected and a mediocrity like Ashcroft became attorney general. Mediocrities cower in the face of adversity, not cower in terms of not flashing their guns but in terms of protecting liberty.
More fundamentally most of the torture processes about which the recently released memos relate are not for the period immediately after 9/11. Rather for the period 2003-2004 by which time far more reflection had occurred regarding the implications of 9/11. The American torture regime was not a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 it was a systematic process initiated by the W. Bush administration.
Re#3- I personally do not believe torture is any material way efficacious but that is my outsider inherently limited information opinion. But until and unless legitimate proof emerges of torture's efficacy, then I will operate under the notion that torture provides immaterial intelligence value (one would the think its proponents would have much incentive to release such information now that many of their techniques are public). Ultimately, however, whether torture provides material information is largely irrelevant to me. Supporters of the American torture regime are also attempting to lower the bar on what would be material success. Would saving one American life be enough? ten?
I would argue it would have to be much higher. American values are worth many lives, American and otherwise. We risk and lose hundreds and thousands of American lives (and usually a high multiple of foreign lives in the process) in the pursuit of American interests and values regularly. An American torture regime undermines liberal democracy and the moral stature which underlies our claims to an American exceptionalism worthy of emulation worldwide. If American adopts policies which strive for zero risk and will contravene our own and international laws in the pursuit of reducing our risks to zero, then we will do so at the price of demeaning our values to the point where we and others can ask but for what?
How credible is an American government that supports the approach of a guy like Cliff May who goes on national TV with a straight face to say what W. Bush was doing was not "torture". How credible is an American government that says over and over they are not "torturing" but by any legitimate standard are doing so and not in very limited ways but in broad systematic ways.
I too believe in American exceptionalism but NOT torturing is one of the reasons why, we are good enough and powerful enough to lead without adopting the ways of the Nazis, Maoists, and terrorists of many ilks.
Finally the Jack Bauer "24" scenario whereby somehow, some way an individual is detained who likely knows of a ticking "bomb" which could threaten the lives of hundreds or thousands. Do I believe this has happened? NO. And to base our policy on such a scenario would be foolhardy. Could it happen? Sure. Should we torture that person? If we actually think it would help YES. I have no doubt Barack Obama or W. Bush would comfortably stand in front of the American people and except responsibly for doing so and the vast majority of American (and world) opinion would support him. If and when this scenario emerges so be it but until then no way, no how. We live in the real world not an artificial fantasy land where the variables are aligned perfectly.
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