Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye
What Gandalf, Aragorn, Galadriel and Faramir all knew when facing their temptation to take the Ring and wield it against the enemy was that using evil, even against evil, makes one evil. Slowly, perhaps, but surely. Evil corrupts and possesses; it destroys the conscience, the will, the soul. An act of evil begins the habit of evil until we become enslaved to it. We all know that the more we sin the easier we fall to sin. Tolkien’s heroes knew using the Ring, even for good, would destroy them: that they would not long have the power over themselves to keep the Ring only as a last resort or a hidden-away, rarely used necessity. I have often heard Tolkien’s tale used this past decade to direct people’s attention to the reality of evil and the necessity of facing it, but such is not the only lesson we might draw from The Lord of the Rings.
Alas, we have Marc Thiessen in National Review, like some panic-inducing town crier in Minas Tirith, urging we use the Weapon of the Enemy – torture, in this case – on terrorist Abdulmutallab and on any active (or suspected to be active, really) enemy combatant. His proclamation isn’t the dangerous advice of Denethor that the Ring should be used only as a last resort: no, he, and apparently many of our fellow citizens, wants torture used as a matter of routine policy, whether it’s thought to be necessary or not. In his words, “You make him tell you what he knows so you can prevent new attacks.” You make him. You break his will; you offend against his dignity as a matter of course. How quickly and easily we are becoming like Mordor.
These defenders of freedom and material salvation will have us enslaved to sin, a country of confused Gollums, conniving Sarumans, wicked Ring-wraiths, and doomed men. Who will free us from this spiritual prison they’re building?
H/T: Andrew Sullivan
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Emotionally, I’m persuaded by this argument.
My quibbling logic-centers keep encountering a caveat, however: Is torture less of an affront to human dignity than execution?
People have a right to life; they have a right to liberty. But when they commit certain crimes we may lock them up, depriving them of their otherwise “inalienable” right to liberty and in rare cases execute them, depriving them of their otherwise “inalienable” right to life.
I don’t see any way for this to make sense except by the notion that criminal behavior is a de facto renunciation of certain of one’s rights: Property, in the case of violations punishable only by a fine; Liberty, for violations punishable by prison time; Life, for the most extreme and premeditated evils.
But in that case, is there not also a threshold of evil action at which one renounces one’s freedom from waterboarding? (Or slapping? Or smoke blown in one’s face? Or having the Barney theme music played incessantly? Or whatever? There’s certainly a spectrum of “enhanced interrogation techniques”; it follows that there is also a spectrum of justifying thresholds.)
Now if torturing a man is more of an affront to his intrinsic dignity than executing him, then one may argue that the threshold for torture is too high to be reached by any evil a single man may do. The Devil Himself has merited torture for his crimes, which is why God is right to condemn him to eternal torment. But no mere man can reach the threshold evil which Satan achieved.
Yet that requires that we assume it’s worse to torture a man than merely to hang him. I can’t imagine that’s right.
None of this, of course, means I think this Pantybomber fellow’s act-of-war is bad enough to merit torture. I would guess that the threshold to justify torture is somewhere above the “kill 200-plus persons in a single act” mark.
Perhaps 1,000-plus is the threshold?
No. That would permit us to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Can’t have that.
Perhaps 100,000? (As in, the ticking-bomb scenario involving a nuke in a city?) Ah, but some folks say it isn’t justified even then.
But surely there’s a threshold somewhere. It’s impossible with today’s technology, but I don’t find it impossible that in a couple of hundred years a terrorist may be able to have control over a device which, if detonated, would wipe out all human life. In a ticking bomb scenario, is it okay to waterboard him? No?
What is it, then, that makes waterboarding, or whatever, so much worse than merely killing the guy? Why is it so much easier for a man to commit an evil act which warrants execution, than for a man to commit an evil act which warrants waterboarding?
Excelsior:
You seem to be addressing as punishment, rather than as as a means of obtaining information. There is a problem with either.
If we torture for information, then there is the real possibility we are torturing an innocent person, someone who knows nothing and has done nothing. That’s evil.
If we torture for punishment, then we are arguably torturing someone who deserves it, but there is no reason to do it. It does not undo the crime, it does not prevent future crimes (whereas execution would).
So where it can be defended on consequentialist grounds, it is unjust. Where it can be defended as juts, it has no point.
Certainly civilized human beings can do without it.
I think the point is that torture should not be legal, and the United States government should not have a policy of torturing people.
Anyone with a bit of imagination can dream up a scenario under which most people (even most people who believe torture is “intrinsically evil”) would probably say, “Heaven help me, but if I were faced with that dilemma, I would say use torture.” If there’s a nuclear bomb set to go off in Manhattan, and I have at my mercy a terrorist who I am certain knows where it is and how to disarm it, and I can get the information out of him by torture, I would do it. But that doesn’t mean I approve of making it legal. (I think the appropriate saying here is, “Hard cases make bad law.”)
One the other hand, John Courtney Murray said the following:
In spite of what Newman said, I do not want a president who would not tell “one willful untruth” to save the earth and prevent something that would cause “all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony.”
Yeah, I wish National Review would stop with permitting these arguments to be set forth on their pages.
If I may once again reference Gandalf, I would say that whether or not someone deserves death, torture, or the like isn’t the fundamental question vis-à-vis our obligation to the other. From the standpoint of Christianity, we all deserve death, yet the Christian who takes it upon himself to reap away the deserving to eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth would be acting quite contrary to the spirit of Christ.
Our efforts in the political order ought, I think, be directed towards the care of and respect for the person. By executing a man, we sever ourselves from our future obligation to care for him. By torturing a man, by inflicting upon him such physical or mental pain that he ceases to act as a person, we render him less than a man.
What concerned me in this post is the effect of torture not upon the man tortured, but upon those who torture and advocate its use. For my part, I would not ask someone to commit a sin to save the world, for in doing so, I am asking that he risk eternal damnation (or, at least, enslavement to sin) for temporal salvation.
Yeah, me too, Zach.
p>Rather than Rumsfield’s “inner gyroscope” the people of the USA need a moral compass. The question of how many innocent lives justify an act of torture reminds me of Genesis 18:22 to 18:33, the story of Abraham pleading with God for Sodom and Gomorrah.
A personal disclosure: My father was tortured in 1945-1946, and he cracked. I don’t know what “enhanced interrogation techniques” his captors used on him because he could not talk about it. As best I can tell, until the moment he betrayed the people who had hidden him and kept him from harm, he had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be tortured. My mother had not done anything wrong, and did not deserve to live for 54 years with a man who was often saintly but at times crazy, and who woke every single night with nightmares until, at the age of 89, a series of strokes stopped them. I didn’t deserve to be born into a family with a father who had PTSD. So, the topic of torture and the realization that I live among ethical imbeciles who would perpetuate and perpetrate such evil brings my blood to an instant boil. Always.
Often I wish that these United States, Catholics included, could find a way to collectively ascend from fundamentalism and realize that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution does not contradict the deeper truths Genesis tries so eloquently to teach us. Do we really need the threat of “eternal damnation” to teach us to respect the sanctity of each person God creates? But reality is this: The polling percentages of those who swear by biblical literalism is pretty similar to the percentages Thiessen quotes in regard to torture, and even more Americans support more liberal use of the death penalty. We are predominantly a nation of spiritual imbeciles, bereft of insight while wallowing in material wealth and military might. God help us.
In moments when I’m connected with the fear and loathing that stain my soul, partly the residual of torture inflicted on my father six decades ago, hope can seem like a distant folly. Perhaps our nation would be better off falling deeper into its fundamentalist blindness, where there are neither “persons” nor “individuals” but only children, afraid to displease God-in-the-sky for fear of God’s mighty wrath. Perhaps, I imagine, that would be better than the illusion that we are “enlightened” and morally ready to make decisions about life and death. Blindness or childhood, however, are not choices we have. Consciousness moves forward, however slowly, through the wilderness to the promised land beyond. Much as we wish for a Moses or a Gandalf to lead us, it is we who are called to witness. God help us.
Frank – incredible comment. Thank you so much for posting it.
Amen.
Great post, Kyle. Osama bin Laden is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams, I think.
What concerned me in this post is the effect of torture not upon the man tortured, but upon those who torture and advocate its use.
Kyle,
I think most of what people have said against torture above applies, at least to some extent, to incarceration. While it is not at all insignificant that “only” three people were tortured, Wikipedia tells us
For my part, I would not ask someone to commit a sin to save the world, for in doing so, I am asking that he risk eternal damnation (or, at least, enslavement to sin) for temporal salvation.
I have to wonder if being an undercover agent (with a false identity), or carrying out a sting operation, or lying to suspects during interrogation is sinful.
“I have to wonder if being an undercover agent, carrying out a sting operation, or lying to suspects during interrogation”
The Church Fathers didn’t permit soldiers to kill for the government. Some denied catechumens to work for the government in any capacity.
I think that should raise some flags.
This is a misrepresentation of Thiessen’s comment. Thiessen writes about the military interrogation of a combatant versus law enforcement’s handling of a prisoner. He doesn’t recommend torture.
Pinky:
While Thiessen didn’t recoomend torturing Abdulmutallab, his headline uses a quote from the Rasmussen Poll:
Thiessen quotes the poll, then in a later paragraph, he writes Americans have a pretty good “inner gyroscope.” It likely would not be necessary to use the waterboard to get Abdulmutallab to talk — “only three terrorists underwent it and only 30 had any enhanced techniques used at all. I find it hard to understand this any other way than “our government should do whatever it takes to get him to talk.” How is it that the current discussion misreprents his position?
Gandalf speaking of Gollum:
“I endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit, together with much sniveling and snarling.”
In case you’re looking for a reference for the Gandalf quote:
The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2; The Shadow of the Past.
Thiessen has been more than clear about his support for the use of “enhanced techniques.” He calls those of us who oppose their use “radical pacifists.”
Steve,
The passage you quote was also raised at my own blog by a couple of readers. In response, I wrote:
The question I’m mulling over is whether or not the ungentle interrogation of Gollum by the heroes, particularly “the fear of fire” used by Gandalf, qualifies as torture. I’m certainly willing to say that not all forms of interrogation or persuasion are immoral: even those that use discomfort or motivate by fear may have their place. The preacher who instructs the youth about Hell seeks to motivate good behavior by an appeal to fear, but I wouldn’t call such an appeal evil. I’m inclined to the position that the characters didn’t cross the line into torture or what we euphemistically call enhanced interrogation. I can explain this further in needed. For argument’s sake, though, let’s say that Gandalf and Aragorn did cross the line and subject Gollum to evil treatment. What does that tell us? Only that our heroes had moments of villainy, moments when they gave in to evil. That they interrogated Gollum harshly doesn’t make their interrogation just.
Thiessen started his post quoting the poll saying 58% of Americans approved of waterboarding, and wrote, “But the vast majority of Americans have it right”
If Thiessen did not intend to favor waterboarding, he would have left the first poll result off the title of his post.
That he did not reveals he was at least willing to communicate his acceptance of it.
Unless this is a prelude to Volume Umpteen of “Waterboarding isn’t torture..”
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If we’re going into the next life with torture on our hands, I’m going to want a better defense than that a heroic character in a fictional story may have employed techniques that could be considered torture.
My response is nothing that hasn’t been overly discussed already so I’ll try to keep it short.
The question is, then, what consititutes torture? If there are circumstances where using methods of discomfort or fear are moral, then at precicely what juncture do these methods cross into the realm of evil? Torture seems to have a rather ambiguous definition, which makes me uneasy for at least two reasons; it makes it easier for torture advocates to convince people of its legitimacy, and it allows those opposed to any type of interrogation techniques to make political hay even if the techniques are used legitimately.
Well, we have a number of legal definitions of what constitutes torture and a history of how those legal definitions have been interpreted and applied to the question of particular techniques. From a legal standpoint, we’re not exactly in the dark, treading in ambiguity though we may be.
My response is nothing that hasn’t been overly discussed already so I’ll try to keep it short.
The question is, then, what consititutes torture?
I can think of few things that have been more “overly discussed” in the last five years that the question of what constitutes torture.
Frank and John – The poll and the Thiessen piece didn’t mention torture. Kyle’s piece didn’t mention interrogation, only torture.
Kyle says that Thiessen “urges” the use of torture on the Christmas Bomber “and on any active (or suspected to be active, really) enemy combatant”. The article says nothing of the sort.
Indeed, after the article describes the poll results (a) in favor of interrogation and (b) in favor of the military system, Thiessen deflects A as probably unnecessary, and urges B. In that sense, the orientation of the article is in favor of the military system, not aggressive interrogation.
Pinky:
The Thiessen piece did more than just mention waterboarding: It’s in the title. If you’re saying “waterboarding is not torture,” that’s a clear point of complete disagreement between us.
Furthermore, the real “a” and “b” set off in paragraphs of their own in Thiessen’s piece aren’t “a: interrogation” and “b: military system” but rather “a: waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques” and “b: we respond with ‘a’.”
I find it remarkable that you can read the article and come away with the idea that Thiessen “deflects” waterboarding as unnecessary. He clearly wants it available for use, and if the poll is to be believed, so do a majority of other Americans. As a society, we are very much ready to betray our most sacred principles.
The point of torture and the cause of deep spiritual scarring isn’t whether we injure the victim this way or that, but that we persuade him to betray deeply held values. Through betrayal the torturer and the tortured eat the same poison.
Frank, the difference in our interpretations of the article don’t stem from whether we believe waterboarding to be torture, but whether we believe the two words to be interchangable.
Consider four sets: A is torture, B is waterboarding, C is interrogation, and D is our judicial system. The poll results are B yes, C yes, D no. Thiessen uses the poll to highlight his position of C yes, D no. He doesn’t mention A and dodges B. Even if you consider B to be a subset of A, you have to recognize that saying the article “urges A on any active (or suspected to be active, really) enemy combatant” is unfair.
Thiessen would, I’m sure, take issue with my calling his defense of “enhanced interrogation techniques” a defense of torture, but then, he doesn’t consider water-boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” that we’ve used to be torture, whereas I do. Thiessen has written a number of articles in a number of publications defended our use of “enhanced interrogations techniques” which I see as a defense of torture. Especially in this light, I interpret Thiessen’s imperative that we make suspected terrorists talk as urging the use of torture (enhanced interrogation techniques).
Pinky:
I agree that Thiessen didn’t urge any specific interrogation technique for Mr. Abdulmutallab, but he clearly wants the man interrogated aggressively, and clearly he makes a case in favor of having waterboarding or the threat of waterboarding be an option for the interrogators. Do we agree that Thiessen is “pro-choice” (for interrogators) with regard to waterboarding?