Don't ask, don't tell

Amen, and again I say amen. This, more than anything else, is what made an ex-Bushman out of me.>

At what point do your fears trump Jesus' golden rule?

Do you pray more for mercy or for justice? On whose behalf do you intercede in prayer?>

If memory serves, Mac, the administration considers "torture" to be limited to that which causes organ injury or death. Which leaves a pretty wide field for creativity.>

The article you link to makes some compelling points.

the well-being of the captive must be weighed against the lives that might be saved by forcing him to talk. A method that produces life-saving information without doing lasting harm to anyone is not just preferable; it appears to be morally sound.

However, the rank dishonesty of our current leadership makes all these arguements moot. We have no reason to believe that they are doing (or not doing) anything that they say they are doing, or getting the results that they claim they are. Their constantly-shifting justifications and complete refusal to engage on the issues gives no reasonable person any basis to believe that they are actually acting in the reasonable best interests of the country or its people.

I think that the author's point is well taken, but needs to be seen within the context of a degree of trust. Without that trust, a public willing to accept coercive interrogation is simply a public willing to turn a blind eye to thugishness.

One may argue that no political leader has motives sufficiently pure, or a level of trust sufficiently high, to make torture a morally justifiable option. That's an interesting discussion, in the abstract. In the context of the current leadership, however, it's not even a question.>

Let's assume the possibility that Bush is right, namely that:

1. "Tough" treatment of detainees, such as KSM, produced intelligence.

2. This intelligence was used to successfully foil terrorist acts.

3. Divulging the manner in which the intelligence was gained would harm the ability to obtain such intelligence in the future, including through our allies.

I am hopeful that most reasonable people would accept these to at least be plausible. So if this is the case, it would be foolish of Bush to divulge details about the program, particularly to the extent that his political adversaries would want (i.e., enough to make a stink about), because it would in fact risk our safety. And so we should not be surprised that he chooses not to do so.

So, yeah, at some point we must decide whether we trust or not trust the President. Funny thing -- trust turns out to be a factor in presidential elections, too.>

"Maybe I've got my priorities backward"

(Hint, Rod - you DO.)

"but what galls me most about this is not even that we've tortured, and reserve the right to ourselves to torture."

THIS doesn't 'gall' you?

"No, what galls me the most is that Bush is so self-righteous about it"

Rod, this is not a 'new' development. Bush has been self-righteous since the moment he stole the election in 2000. Pompously, obnoxiously so. Glad you finally noticed.

"and is manipulating the legitimate fears that people have ... to disarm their moral sense, even as he poses as a guardian of morality."

He is a destroyer of morality.

"America already has a big problem with "ends justifies the means" morality. This is making it worse."

Welcome aboard, Rod. It took you long enough.>

Pikkumatti,

Your logic is solid, but I must point out one practical matter: in human history, and quite well-exemplified in US history, once a power is given without an accompanying balance or check, that power will be abused.

This is precisely why we have a nation founded on two principles: that the governed are the final arbiters of governance; that the individual rights are paramount, and any balancing and compromise must come down on the side of the individual.

I've paraphrased some things there. I hope they are clear.

President Bush has violated, directly and severely, both principles. I am appalled by both the lack of criticism of his actions, and the lack of official sanction and reversal of his actions. Forget about means and ends, the Bush administration's arrogant disregard for law has corrupted any good intentions or laudable goals.

I see no moral distinction between torture at Guantanamo and the apparent torture of the men recently found in and around Baghdad.>

I want everyone to witness: Pikkumatti actually asked one of the longest-winded writers here to give what has to be a long answer. I'm taking names down for subpoenas... :)

1) I will laud the use of torture in order to save lives, so long as the torturer is sent to prison for a period commenserate with the type and level of torture used to acquire the information. That would be an acceptable check to the power. It would also serve as notice that only the highest moral purpose can justify the use of torture.

2) The final result, the thwarting of the enemy, is the same in each case. I will immediately stipulate that the primary intent of the Iraqi insurgents fails to meet the same moral standards of the Gtmo incidents (and we must, at least in passing, think on the recently divulged secret "detention centers" where even military codes of justice are not enforced), but I hasten to add that this is from our POV. The insurgents, I feel sure, say the same about themselves from their POV.

3) In the end, the moral principle I'm defending is this: we have as our core national value -- as stated in the foundational documents at the birth of our nation -- a commitment to preventing forevermore the abuses and oppressions of monarchies and entrenched aristocracies. If I may be so bold, this means that arbitrary decisions are right out, and they become the immediate red flag for any society, open and free or not, that the citizens are in danger from their leaders/rulers/whathaveyou.

Mr. Bush, or his delegates, acted arbitrarily in the torture issue (and devised some incredibly obvious circumlocutions to be their justification), and broke the law called FISA. Those are the two most obvious items, the easiest ones to demonstrate, and I submit that they are not the only violations committed... but I will let the rest pass for lack of objective confirmations. Both of these violations strike to the heart of our most cherished concepts: the right of the individual to due process, the right to be accused, tried and convicted in public, the right to confront his accusers, the right to see all evidence, the right to have that evidence be questioned and dismissed according to established evidentiary standards, but the one I'm most angry about is the right to obtain redress when the government breaks the very laws we made them responsible for making and enforcing.

I'm no legal expert, for all I talk a good talk, but I was there watching Watergate -- I was 15 when the fecal objects started hitting the whirly blades, and the circumvention of FISA is at least as egregious as the break-in and subsequent coverup. It has the major difference of also having a direct impact on thousands of US citizens.

We would not be having this debate if Bush had simply created a task force and made them go through FISA. Some of us might be grinding our teeth over the Big Brother tactics, but I personally would have no room to object on the grounds I've stated.

The torture thing is, for want of a better word, ridiculous. There is no scientific evidence that people will divulge the truth more readily when threatened with pain and death. The entire military community is split right down the middle on this issue, with the JAGs especially all taking the side of the detainees... that being, for me, the main reason to justify my own ire in the matter. I'll put the rest in the next post, because I'm betting you and others are going to want to rip me some new orifices, and I'll even stand still for it.>

Thanks, Franklin. Here goes:

1) Your solution is a cop-out. If the "torturer" is justified in his act (as you say "only the highest moral purpose can justify the use of torture", then he is not morally culpable. It would be unjust to punish the interrogator for his actions.

2) I hasten to add that this is from our POV. The insurgents, I feel sure, say the same about themselves from their POV.

Sorry, but not all POVs are equally valid. Specifically in this case, one POV is furthering freedom and is seeking to preserve life, and the other POV is seeking to destroy life and destroy freedom. To equate the value of these points of view, and to use that to support the statement that "The final result, the thwarting of the enemy, is the same in each case" misses the mark. I can only conclude from this that you make no moral distinction between these two acts, and in that you are wrong.

3) I'd clarify our core national value from that which you've stated ("a commitment to preventing forevermore the abuses and oppressions of monarchies and entrenched aristocracies"). I think you've chosen a "core value" because of the answer you're looking for. And it puts process over substance.

To me, our core national value is also found in the Declaration, but in this part:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

If our core national value is the avoidance of "arbitrary decisions", then majority-rule-no-matter-what could satisfy that core national value. And I know you'd hate that (as would I).

Therefore, turning to the "torture" issue first, it is worth considering whether the due process rights must apply. My view, and that which has persisted through history, is that those due process rights belong to citizens, defined in the broad sense (not the technical "documented" sense) as those people who buy into the self-evident truths of the Declaration, and are willing to live along with others in so doing.

OTOH, those who reject these self-evident truths by their actions, and who have the will and the means to destroy our society as a result of that rejection, are enemies of freedom, and of the true "core national value" of this country. They have not accepted, and will not accept, the principles on which those rights are based -- and as such, the rights do not attach to them. History will show that this is the traditional view of whom enjoys these rights.

The Government and its officials have not only the right, but the solemn duty, to protect the Nation from those attackers, and to preserve this society that permits you and I and the other nuts to freely debate these issues.

And no, terrorist attacks do not come with the territory. Our vulnerability to attack is the result of our free and open society -- we would not have it any other way. But when faced with a threat, it is our Government's duty, and indeed the duty of each citizen, to protect the Nation from that threat. And actions taken because of that duty are not per se arbitrary.

I'll just toss out a bit on the FISA point. If you are referring to the recent District Court decision, I'd suggest you broaden your reading. Even the plaintiffs in that case (i.e., those who prevailed) are embarassed by the decision, and find it counterproductive because of the certainty of its overturning on appeal (primarly because of the utter lack of support in fact or law on which the decision is based). On the issue itself, there is at least a split of opinion on the issue, and indeed it appears that the Appeals Court case law favors the view that the actions are constitutional and legal (U.S. v. Truong is often cited as authority). So I think it is a stretch to conclude that Pres. Bush has broken the law in this case.

On the torture point, you say there is no scientific evidence that people will divulge the truth more readily when threatened with pain and death. Perhaps. But the premise of Bush's speech, which I believe, is that the interrogation of KSM and others provided intelligence that was used to stop actual attacks. So there is actual evidence that whatever they did, worked. I'm thinking the facts are on Bush's side rather than yours on this point.

I'm older than you. I too remember Watergate. Watergate was all about a President doing whatever it took to preserve his own power, and was in fact subversive of our political process. Bush's actions have been taken not to preserve his political power, but to protect the country. You may not think that this is a qualititative difference, but then again you drew moral equivalence between interrogation by the US and Islamofacsist beheadings, so I'll leave it to the reader which is more reasonable.

Whew. Exhausting. Good comments on your part, and thanks for the opportunity to think this through, and for the license to be so long-winded.>

Wow. Great post, pikkumatti. I'll try to whittle down my follow up by referring to the paragraph to which I'm responding.

1) It is not a cop out, if the legal structure is clearly defined: torture is illegal, using torture even in support of a moral result does not absolve the torturer from guilt, and only a court of law has the power to determine the before, during and after aspects of the entire process. Moral censure and conviction of a crime are not necessarily connected or synonymous. You and I can easily come up with a spectrum of hypothetical cases (and perhaps an historian could replace them with real examples), from throwing the torturer in jail and throwing away the key, to giving him a medal and a tickertape parade. The point is that you and I, and the President, are not qualified under the law to make those distinctions. By his actions, the President has usurped the power to make those decisions. That power belongs to the judiciary.

2) And I'm sorry, but you violated the rules of the logic of this point. You do not get to define the other POV; indeed, you projected your own POV in your rebuttal. I clearly stated that from their POV they make the same claims we make from our POV. I did not even imply any sort of value judgment on either side. At no point did I write that "all POVs are valid". I made simple observations.

Objectivity is difficult. That is what I'm challenging you to achieve. Please don't take it as criticism.

3) This one is my fault. I was in fact attempting to paraphrase and logically extend the very quote you used from the DOI. I should have gone straight to that and been done with it.

In service of the main point then:

...due process rights belong to citizens, defined in the broad sense (not the technical "documented" sense) as those people who buy into the self-evident truths of the Declaration, and are willing to live along with others in so doing.

This may be a longstanding historical and philosophical view, and you and I are in very good company with it (Robert A. Heinlein, for one), but it is not the understanding of the vast majority of our fellow citizens, and any application of it would mean forcibly revoking the franchise of most of those citizens. We have two very unfortunate examples in support of that: women's suffrage, and the suppression of the civil rights of full citizens due to race, religion or ethnic origin. Both resulted in laws, both sets of laws required alot of time and not a little violence to become universally enforced (well, as close to universally as one can reasonably expect). So please, I have very little faith in the civic morality of most of my fellow citizens.

Now, don't get me wrong, most people are not the enemies of freedom. Most of them are passively "unmoral", in things like failure to vote, or indulging in NIMBY* behaviors, or just in their speech. They are mostly benign in their lack of understanding.

* Just in case: Not In My Back Yard.

...actions taken because of that duty are not per se arbitrary. Perhaps, but there are plenty of examples of their being arbitrary q.e.d.

I suppose I'll have to abandon the FISA example, because it is my view that the administration is intentionally obfuscating the issues involved, when to my layman's eyes it is simple and clear: a body of law provides for exactly what they wanted to do, and the reason they circumvented the law was to avoid the oversight aspects of that law. That is as arbitrary as it comes, and if our judiciary is permitting debate around this issue, all I can do is throw my hands up in disgust. I think I should avoid getting the details, because I also want to avoid vomiting. Sigh.

Bush's actions have been taken not to preserve his political power, but to protect the country.

This brings us back to the very first point. If Bush can somehow prove that his immoral (well, I want to write illegal as well) use of torture and wiretaps without oversight served a high moral purpose, then I'll support a slap on the wrist and a well-done. I cannot, however, divorce from this mental process the WMD fiasco, the Hussein-al Qaeda connection fallacy, and the willful lack of forward planning around the whole Iraq mess. I'm even pissed off that they were doing so well in Afghanistan until they decided to go with two fronts, and have ended up doing neither of them at all well.

Bush and his delegates have acted to lose my trust. They have to go a long way beyond stump speeches to earn it back.

...you drew moral equivalence between interrogation by the US and Islamofacsist beheadings...

No, sir. I failed to make my intention clear. I attempted to objectively state the POVs, to show that neither side has the moral high ground when it comes to torture. Indeed, my explicit view is that they are both equally immoral, if for different reasons and with the need to arrive at those reasons with independent analyses.>

I'll be real brief this time, Franklin. (I've got to make a living.)

1) I agree that moral censure and conviction of a crime are not synonymous. But that is in one direction only -- there are lots of morally censurable acts that we do not punish under criminal law. I'll stand by my point that it is unjust to punish someone for something is not morally wrong. And it remains a cop-out for a society to morally justify and benefit from an act that they punish the actor for. But if your system is in place, it doesn't matter, because if the act is punishable (and if the actor won't know until the information proves out whether the act worked), this won't happen at all. And innocents will die.

2) I wasn't arguing objectivity of points of view. To me, POV is not relevant to the moral weighing of the interrogation and the terrorism. You brought it up, not me. While, as you say, it may be that "from their POV they make the same claims we make from our POV" -- I'm just saying they're wrong because their claims are objectively false. The terrorists are not gathering information to save and preserve life and freedom -- they are destroying life to make a point or to cause fear (see the Theo van Gogh and Mohammed cartoon cases for examples).

3) I'm not saying that the test of adopting the founding principle means forcibly revoking the franchise of most of those citizens -- all I am saying is that foreign actors who, by their actions, show that they reject the founding principles, and who have the will and the means to destroy our civilization because it does, are not necessarily entitled to the due process rights of those living in a society operating under that principle. That's all.

Nor will I agree that the "tough" treatment of KSM and the detainees is either immoral or illegal. In my view, it is neither. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.>

First of all, I think torture should be defined. Are we chopping off fingers or playing loud music. Some critics think the latter is torture. So we make our enemies uncomfortable - I don't think I want to serve them breakfast in bed. Get real, these people want to destroy our very way of life and any means possible including chopping off heads. The media fuels this debate because they hate Bush-plain and simple. I don't agree with everything the President does but I certainly think he is trying to keep us safe. If that means some discomfort to our enemies then so be it. We can't have it both ways. I will never forget 9/11 and hopefully you won't either. This war on terror will last the rest of my lifetime and beyond so we better wise up and stop all the "mamby-pamby" stuff.>