Tuesday, December 11, 2007

We Do Not Torture

President Bush has declared to the world that “Americans don’t torture.” Therefore, since Americans don’t torture, the various things we do to extract information from the “civilian combatants” we are holding are – by his definition – not torture. Because we don’t torture. Because we are the good guys. Because …..

It is said that a paradox is the ability to hold two apparently contradictory opposite thoughts in your mind at the same time with no apparent discomfort. It often seems that George Bush has raised the concept of paradox to an unimaginable art form enveloping not just Americans but citizens of the world.

By any simple definition, torture is the act of inflicting pain or death on someone, or causing one to believe that such pain or death is an imminent outcome, in order to force one to commit an action. Much of our recent national discussion has been around the example of “waterboarding” as an interrogation technique. This involves submerging individuals in water, or pouring water over their heads, to the extent that an individual believes drowning is imminent. Well, if this is not torture, I just don’t know what else is. Most common-sense Americans can recognize it as just that. Stripped of any legalistic wordsmanship and political candidate rhetoric about who is more qualified to “keep America safe,” this is violence against others rationalized by the end [keep Americans safe at any price] justifying the means [torture].

We have given away so much of our better selves as a result of our venture into Iraq. So many human, philosophical, and ethical casualties. We are still working through 30 years of our legacy in Viet Nam; our Iraq experience will likely take us as long or more to recover. Americans are fundamentally a good and generous people. But in the name of personal security we have long ago surrendered the moral high ground. While we point to the bad guys and say that all we do is permissible because our cause is just and ethical, the bad guys are equally convinced in the rightness of their cause. A cause that is a mystery to us, perhaps, but very clear and rational to them. And they have the willingness to do whatever is necessary to advance that cause. We are left to wonder --- what version of America are we defending?

When we operate on the same level as our enemy, we thereby implicitly endorse their actions. We become what we say we despise. It matters not who started a cycle of violence; that becomes irrelevant history in favor of who did what last. So their actions begat our actions begat their actions, and the cycle never ends.

John McCain, himself a torture victim in Viet Nam, is the only Republican presidential candidate forthright enough to denounce this mentality for the danger that it is. The other Republicans are too busy out-racing each other to be the ultimate war hardliner. Meanwhile, most of the Democratic candidates speak out against the use of torture, but are still trying to figure out how to present themselves as both a peace candidate and war president at the same time.

McCain, for whom this question is not a hypothetical question, understands the simple truth of reciprocity: that what we do to others inherently gives permission to others to do the same to us. We are entitled to no better treatment than what we give. When we inflict torture, no matter how seemingly justified in the short term, we invite the same treatment to our soldiers and civilians in the field. When we give away our morality in favor of revenge, how do we subsequently explain the abused and distorted body of a tortured soldier to his or her parents and family? “He did not die in vain” and “she served her country proudly” somehow just doesn’t seem to be enough.

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