I realize, though, that not everyone shares my moral views. So, today, I am turning my attention to a more practical point. I think it is one that everyone can comprehend, even if they disagree.
There certainly seem to be times when the planets are lining up in a way to make my point for me. With Dick Cheney making the rounds to defend the Bush administration's torture policy, this is one of those times.
It may have escaped the notice of many that a man named Ibn al–Sheikh al–Libi committed suicide, apparently on Sunday. Most Americans probably would have trouble pronouncing the name since most probably never heard it, but the folks in the Bush administration knew who he was.As Peter Finn reports in the Washington Post, "He became the unnamed source, according to Senate investigators, behind Bush administration claims in 2002 and 2003 that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al–Qaeda operatives. The claim was most famously delivered by then–Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in his address to the United Nations in February 2003.
"Powell later called the speech a 'blot' on his record, saying he was not given all available intelligence and analysis within the government."
I have argued in this blog that information that is gleaned via torture is unreliable. It is untrustworthy because someone who is being tortured is likely to tell his/her interrogators whatever they want to hear in order to make them stop.
Libi later recanted the things he said, but the Bush administration had already used his words as the pretext to launch its invasion of Iraq. Can there be a better argument against torture? Libi gave his interrogators false information. Because of the moral shortcomings of those in power, that "information" was used to start a war that continues to drain America of its human and financial resources six years later.
Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell defends the Bush policy and decries the "verbal fencing" in discussions of torture. "The left has long confused physical parallels with moral parallels," he writes.
But it seems to me that he is guilty of confusing the hypothetical with the real when he writes:
"What if it was your mother or your child who was tied up somewhere beside a ticking time bomb and you had captured a terrorist who knew where that was? Face it: What you would do to that terrorist to make him talk would make water–boarding look like a picnic.
"You wouldn't care what the New York Times would say or what 'world opinion' in the U.N. would say. You would save your loved one's life and tell those other people what they could do."
It is a blatant emotional appeal, not grounded in any facts. The Libi case tells you everything you need to know about the Bush administration's tactics — and the value of those tactics.
Sowell's words remind me of the ones that were heard in 1988 when, during a debate with George H.W. Bush, Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, who was on record as an opponent of the death penalty, was asked a hypothetical question about whether he would favor the death penalty if someone raped and murdered his wife.
Dukakis tried to answer the question by using facts and was harshly criticized for appearing to be a cold fish.
But Dukakis was being logical and sensible — and I like to think he would have been the kind of president Martin Sheen was in "The West Wing." In the series, Sheen's daughter was kidnapped. Rather than leave important decisions in the hands of a distraught father, Sheen's character voluntarily invoked the 25th Amendment and temporarily handed presidential power to the next person in line. Since the vice presidency was vacant, that meant putting the speaker of the House, a member of the opposing party, in charge.
Realistically, the question that was asked of Dukakis was a red herring. Although the federal government has been involved in executions on occasion (i.e., the Rosenbergs in 1953), the death penalty is almost exclusively the domain of the states. And, even in the rare cases of federal executions, the executive branch would have almost no input, unless the president chose to pardon the condemned person(s). It is hard for me to imagine George W. Bush demonstrating Sheen's kind of selflessness, although, in hindsight, I am glad that he never did since that would have meant putting Dick Cheney in charge — officially.
Today, Ali Soufan, a special agent for the FBI from 1997 to 2005, told a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee that "enhanced interrogations" don't work.
Based on his background, I think Soufan would have to be regarded as an expert in this field, and he said, in a written statement, "From my experience — and I speak as someone who has personally interrogated many terrorists and elicited important actionable intelligence — I strongly believe that it is a mistake to use what has become known as the 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' "
To me, that doesn't sound ambiguous at all. But, in case there is any residual doubt, here is something else he said today:
"People were given misinformation, half–truths and false claims of successes; and reluctant intelligence officers were given instructions and assurances from higher authorities. I wish to do my part to ensure that we never again use these ... techniques instead of the tried, tested and successful ones — the ones that are also in sync with our values and moral character. Only by doing this will we defeat the terrorists as effectively and quickly as possible."
If defeating the terrorists is the ultimate objective — and if it is true, as Bush and Cheney and their defenders often said, that the terrorists want to destroy our way of life — it seems to me that it is important that we defeat them in a way that is consistent with our values.
Torture is not consistent with our values.
2 comments:
Great post. Seriously.
Thank you, Alex. That means a lot to me.
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