Uh oh… Here I go thinking about torture again. Yes its a topic that’s been on my mind for weeks, months, years since we first learned that America tortured its prisoners. Try as the media might to distract me this week with fears of a swine flu pandemic, it’s torture that that has my undivided attention.
This week started off a comic from This Modern World: (click to read the whole thing.)
That comic was followed by a spirited debate between Jon Stewart and Cliff May, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, that pits a defender of Bush’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques against a humanitarian that is really worth watching, so watch all three parts.
The Daily Show debate was followed by a contemplative article by Pauline W. Chen, M.D., a surgeon who says people become “habituated” to torture just like surgeons get habituated to cutting into their patients. It’s not natural. It’s not comfortable, but if you do it enough times, you can get used to it. She writes:
After years of training, cutting began to feel second nature to me, the scalpel merely an extension of my fingers. So when a friend earlier this week told me that she could never imagine cutting into another person and wondered how young doctors learn to do so, I had to stop and think before I could respond to her.
“Habituation,” I finally said. “You get used it.”
That response, and the idea of becoming habituated, has been haunting me ever since. Is it possible for all of us to become habituated to the horrific?
And finally there was Obama responding to a question during his 100 days news conference about whether he believed the Bush Administration sanctioned torture:
What I’ve said — and I will repeat — is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.
I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, “We don’t torture,” when the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.
And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what’s — what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.
And — and so I strongly believed that the steps that we’ve taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a — in a position where we can still get information.
In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.
…
So this is a decision that I’m very comfortable with. And I think the American people over time will recognize that it is better for us to stick to who we are, even when we’re taking on an unscrupulous enemy.
Obama gets it.
Torture is WRONG! We should not do it. We’re better than that.
Which brings me to this: When I look at the meter that tracks how many people read this blog and how they get here, I often see that they land on these torture posts by searching for “is torture immoral” and “torture morality” and “why is torture immoral.” You get the idea. My first instinct is to follow the search engine to other sites they may have visited, but then I stop and think: Why do you need some website to give you an answer to that question?
Slamming people’s heads into a wall, beating them, subjecting them to cold temperatures, keeping them awake for ten days, almost drowning them, stacking them naked into human pyramids. Those are all terrible things to do to people that cause great physical and/or mental suffering.
What really gets me is how so many Republicans, the party of the Religious Right who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus, try and justify these acts. Like Jesus would shame men by making them stand naked with women’s underwear on their heads in awkward positions for hours. Like Jesus would hook wires to a man’s testicles, make him stand hooded and caped on a box for hours, and tell him he wold be electrocuted if he fell. Really? They can justify that kind of treatment? It’s a wonder their heads don’t explode.
So if you landed here because you searched for “is torture immoral,” I will make it simple for you. YES! Torture is immoral. All you have to do is think about it. And as many religions, including Christianity, teach us; put yourself in the prisoner’s position. Think about someone torturing you. Think about fearing for your life as you are nearly drowned. Think about how it would feel to be deprived of sleep for ten days. Think about sitting naked on a concrete floor for a day or two. Can you trick yourself into thinking that you can withstand that kind of treatment so it’s not torture? Think again.
There are other more humane ways to get information from people that are proven to be more effective and more reliable. There are ways to befriend captives and make them think it’s in their best interest to divulge information.
For example, if anyone wanted me to confess to something, all they would have to do is sit down in a bar with me and buy me several shots of single-barrel bourbon - I’d end up telling them everything! I’d tell so much they wouldn’t even feel bad about giving me megadoses of Advil so I don’t suffer through the whisky hangover the next day.
Okay, I think I’ve gotten a lot off my mind with this one. I’ll try and find a new topic now.
If you want to read more, read this column by Serge Schmemann that ends with a quote:
“Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand.” – Aharon Barak, President of the Israeli Supreme Court
