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The national debate over our use of torture has centered upon whether it works. The defenders, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, claim its use has allowed us to stymie attacks on our nation. Opponents, among which I include myself, argue it doesn’t work and tends to produce false information. Even the intelligence community can’t seem to agree on whether or not it works.
My concern is if you base the anti-torture argument solely on whether it works, you leave yourself vulnerable if a few cases are revealed where it has worked. The logic we have not experienced a 9/11-like attack since we codified the use of torture also undercuts you.
A little truth would help here. I believe all countries at one time or another have used torture. The Bush administration’s crime, it seems to me, is not it originated our use of torture, but that it institutionalized it as policy.
The truth is, in the infamous ticking-time bomb scenario, if other methods have failed, any country would resort its use. But the ticking time bomb, while it may be a weekly scenario for Jack Bauer on "24," is in real life, thankfully, an extraordinary possibility. The problem arises when we base routine policy on extraordinary circumstances. In codifying torture as U.S. policy, the Bush administration did just that.
Remember when the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib came to light? The administration blamed it on a few bad apples. The president vehemently denied America tormented its prisoners. When waterboarding was exposed, the argument became the practice should not be considered torture. With the recent release of secret administration memos, the argument is no longer we don’t torture, but that it works.
The argument against is not that it never works, but by the Bush White House essentially blessing its use, we head down a slippery slope from which there is no return. Torture soon becomes not a rarely used tool, but part of the way we treat prisoners from whom we believe we can extract information.
People my age grew up at a time when war movies always showed torture as an instrument used by the bad guys. America wanted no part it. We defeated the Nazis and the Japanese Empire without using torture as public policy. We fought in Korea and Vietnam and looked down our noses at the enemy — and rightly so because it tortured our prisoners. We withstood the challenge of the Soviet Union and the threat of atomic warfare without institutionalizing the use of torture.
We were always proud of our humane treatment of prisoners. When we didn’t live up to our standards, we punished those who violated the rules. We felt our country stood for something better.
As horrific as 9/11 was, our government did more lasting damage to America than the jihadists when it justified the use of torture, then pretended it did not exist and, then in finally admitting its use, claimed the ends justifies the means.
Even the apologists must admit it tarnished our country’s integrity and became a recruiting tool for terrorists around the world. Our only real hope for stopping acts of terror is by cooling the flames of discontent, not by inflaming the jihadists and swelling their numbers.
We face an even more difficult question now that the president has eliminated torture as official policy. I think any prosecution of higher-ups involved in the decision-making process will tear this country apart. Such a trial might satisfy some sense of justice but would, in my mind, sidetrack the president’s agenda on health care, education and the environment. The spectacle would mobilize the fury of the right and result in retribution that would make Watergate look trivial by comparison. I don’t think it is overly dramatic to believe the safety of our president would be in danger. Such a trial would involve complex and highly emotional issues and would not be as easy to prosecute as some seem to believe, with the defendants wrapping themselves in the flag and national security.
The price is too high to pay.
