An Opinion Journal editorial talks about the discussion of torture, and both it and the reader responses (I read it too late to try to put in a response) demonstrate a failure to discuss more than a very small amount of information.
Somehow, in the years since 9/11, it’s become trendy in Republican circles to want the US to sink to terrorists’ level and torture anyone who might possibly know something relating to some kind of potential terrorist. (Refer to the Maher Arar situation if you think I’m being too harsh.)
What is being left out is that it isn’t only Congressional liberals and pro-terrorist politicians who are against torture. The Army, which is hardly a radical left-wing organization or one known for its soft-handed treatment of America’s enemies, is against these methods. The military lawyers involved are hardly trying to coddle the bad guys:
In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.
There is also a good point:
Rear Adm. Michael F. Lohr, the Navy’s chief lawyer, wrote on Feb. 6, 2003, that while detainees at Guantánamo Bay might not qualify for international protections, “Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?
For what do we want to sell our nation’s souls?
Apparently, the administration, commentators on the Right, and the CIA want to use all kinds of methods — up through and including torture. The Army and the FBI argue that it doesn’t work and is wrong.
I can understand the argument, and can see that people would have arguments on one side or the other. But I would appreciate it if we could at least look at the issue honestly, instead of deliberately ignoring half of the information out there just to make it look easier.
John McCain has a lot to say about torture, partly because he’s one of the only major political figures in this country who has been the object of torture. Ignoring his input seems unethical and intellectually dishonest to me.
Of course, there’s also the game of semantics, wherein we put the word “torture” in quotes when referring to it, as if torture isn’t really torture. We also seek to redefine words. This feels a lot like debating what the meaning of the word “is” is.
NewsMax, being what it is, took an interesting take on John McCain’s comments. Its authors cleverly skip all of the ethical questions and comments about who we are as a nation, and boil his words to the claim that torture worked on him, so it must be effective.
Ultimately, I find myself agreeing with Bruce Morton’s sentiment — are we really discussing torture in the US?
