On a First Things blog, J. Bottum writes that torture is immoral, but that Eric Holder's pondering whether or not to prosecute Bush officials for torture endangers the republic. Excerpt:
Say you have a system of government in which policy differences are criminalized--a political situation in which a change of administration allows the people who've lost power to be prosecuted. We have a name for what happens next: We call it a coup.
John Schwenkler is gobsmacked, pointing out that AG Holder is reportedly considering prosecution of CIA interrogators who violated the Bush administration's own policies on interrogation. This isn't "criminalizing policy differences;" this is criminalizing criminality.
It is true that not everything that is illegal ought to be prosecuted, which is to say, prudence should decide such matters. I don't know whether or not the CIA interrogators in question should face prosecution by the US government under the new administration. But I don't think it should be out of the question. The Republic has far more to fear from leaders who think they are free to break the law in the name of a higher good, and from an ethic that says lawbreaking tied to an executive policy is immune from prosecution because to object would be an act of dangerous partisanship.
Then again, Jody's got a pecular sense of what constitutes a threat to the Republic, having once appealed to the judge in Scooter Libby's case not to send the convicted executive-branch liar to jail because doing so would cause "deep philosophical injury" to the nation, and would harm "our shared lives in this country."
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Andrew- You are very old fashioned. The torture regimes of the 20th and 21st centuries moved on past that stuff. It is very time intensive and is more costly. Torture like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes and isolation take fewer personnel and have lower need for medical treatment if you are going to keep people alive. We were using the same torture schemes worked out by the North Koreans and Russians , for the most part. You are known by the company you keep.
Steve
"Now, a question to you, Don. We have exactly this scenario playing out for us in a recently publicized terrorist incident. Dr. George Tiller was murdered recently, and Scott Roeder is being held in custody as the prime suspect. Mr. Roeder recently said that he knew of several other plots to murder healthcare professionals, and that these would be happening in the near future.
Don...should we torture Mr. Roeder in hopes that we can get him to give us more information about these plots he allegedly knows about? Why or why not?"
When it involves a city--yes, we should.
Me: "Don...should we torture Mr. Roeder in hopes that we can get him to give us more information about these plots he allegedly knows about? Why or why not?"
Don: "When it involves a city--yes, we should."
Are our enemies in conflicts then right to torture our captured citizens (whether they be military or civilian workers) in an effort to determine what attacks may be pending on their cities?
Notice I am not asking if they do, for we know that many times those we oppose resort to torture, even methods that are far worse than what we employ. I am asking, instead, if they are right to do so in the name of protecting their people, their cities, from attacks from our military forces.
Conceding that torture is permissible under certain conditions, which of the following would be the best justification?
1. Your prisoner is the only one who knows the date and time of an assassination attempt on the Pope
2. Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a nuclear device has been planted in Washington, D.C.
3. Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a vial of nerve gas has been placed in the London water supply system
4. Your prisoner has announced that the earth revolves around the sun
LOL
RJohnson wrote: "You know, I am really not that surprised we are hearing arguments like this from proponents of torture. After all, these are the same people who will cry you a river when they mention all the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, but brandish the label "collateral damage" when it is our bombs and some other nation's innocent victims."
Thank you. That was very well put. This paragraph alone puts almost our entire ill-advised military romp throughout the mid-East in crystal clear perspective.
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