At NRO, Jonah Goldber has jumped into the debate, raising some interesting questions that are worthy of consideration. Jonah’s argument takes two parts that I believe can be responded to separately. In the first section, he concedes that the issue is partially a battle over definitions:
Torture is a taboo word, and for good reason. Like incest, bigotry or, in some circles, censorship, the word torture separates good from evil, right from wrong. Once we decide something is torture, we end the debate over what the right policy should be. The right policy is to never torture.
That’s one reason why supporters of waterboarding reject the term torture, preferring “enhanced interrogation methods” or some such; because conceding that it’s torture is like surrendering. It’s also why opponents of waterboarding are so intent to win the argument that it is torture. I don’t doubt they believe it, but they also recognize that the taboo value of the term is their strongest weapon against the practice. They certainly aren’t going to win much ground trying to muster sympathy for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
And so the discussion descends into a battle of semantics, dictionary entries and checklists. Joe Carter lists a bunch of definitions and if he persuades the reader that waterboarding fits the definitions, bada bing: he wins.
Jonah is certainly right that supporters of waterboarding reject the term torture because it undercuts their position. Waterboarding has historically been considered torture, and the opponents are merely trying to prevent the redefinition of the act into something less odious. But I don’t think opponents of waterboarding are trying to win the argument solely on semantic grounds. We are merely pointing out that words have meaning and refusing to concede that new definitions should apply because we are living in a more liberal age.
This attempt to move the definitional boundaries is akin to Whoopi Goldberg’s claim that Roman Polanski’s actions weren’t “rape-rape” since she is more comfortable with sex with children than is the majority of the population.
As Whoopi Goldberg has shown, many progressives are comfortable expanding the linguistic boundaries of sexual behavior to defend actions that were once considered taboo. Similarly, many conservatives, such as Mr. Thiessen, are progressives are comfortable expanding the linguistic boundaries of violence in order to defend actions that were once considered torture. On the left we have “rape-rape”; on the right we have “torture-torture.”
Jonah’s second point focuses on the justification of certain actions under emergency situations:
My problem with this taxonomical approach, as I’ve written before, is I think context and intentions matter. The Catholic Church — as Carter and Marc both know far, far better than I — has a theory of just war. That means war is sometimes justified, right? It also means it is sometimes evil and criminal. The question depends on the circumstances. Similarly, killing is sometimes murder and sometimes it is self-defense or (for some) lawful and justified execution.
No one has ever explained to my satisfaction why torture, or let’s say some kinds of torture, is objectively and in all ways worse than killing. Which would you rather happen to you? Would you rather be waterboarded or killed? Which would get you a stiffer criminal penalty, waterboarding someone or murdering them? Why do you think that is? Which do you think deserves the greater criminal penalty?
Before we provide an answer to Jonah’s question, let’s clear away some of the semantic problems. He first asks, “Would you rather be waterboarded or killed?” but then follows with, “Which would get you a stiffer criminal penalty, waterboarding someone or murdering them?”
Obviously, most of us would rather be waterboarded than murdered and even opponents of torture would admit that he criminal penalty for the latter should be stiffer. But by his own admission, Jonah recognizes that killing is sometimes murder and lawful execution.
One of the relevant distinctions for making such a judgment is whether a person is a combatant or a noncombatant. While it may be justified to kill an enemy engaged in direct, armed conflict it would be murder to kill them after they surrendered or were captured since a prisoner-of-war is an enemy noncombatant.
Advocates of torture sometimes argue that the since enemy noncombatants may have actionable knowledge that makes them a threat, that they should be treated as combatants. But by this logic, we should also be able to shoot them in the head or throw a live grenade into their cell. Do they think that since they’ve defined an unarmed prisoner as a combantat that it is acceptable to kill them?
Jonah continues:
It seems, going by Marc’s response, that CIA waterboarding is not quite the same as what they did during the Spanish inquisition. That’s good to know. But even if the two were more similar, Carter leaves out a hugely important difference. Waterboarding someone for punishment or to force them to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity is morally a very different thing than waterboarding someone to find out how to stop the next 9/11. It may be that the latter waterboarding is still wrong – that’s a real debate – but it surely must be less wrong than waterboarding for sport. A kid who kills dogs and cats for fun is a sadistic bastard. A vet who euthanizes dogs and cats when it’s necessary to ease their pain is something very different.
As I’ve shown in the two previous posts on the subject, waterboarding is essentially the same as the method used in the Spanish inquisition. There really is no difference between one form of suffocation by water and another. The question, though, is whether the motives behind the act significantly change the moral equation.
The problem with judging based on motives is that it requires a subjective values clarification. Jonah thinks that waterboarding to force a confession of heresy is morally different from waterboarding to force a confession of intent to commit terrorism. But would a Spanish Inquisitor think the same? Perhaps they would argue that the soul of a single individual is of more worth than the lives of thousands of citizens. They also might contend that the spread of heresy may be more damaging to a nation than any act of terrorism.
Naturally, I would disagree with the Inquisitor. But who’s to say who is right? Why would a modern American’s justification of torture be any more morally worthy than that of a medieval Spaniard?
(I’ll concede that the motives of those who engaged in waterboarding terrorists is likely to be unimpeachable. Though some of the interrogators now have qualms about their actions, I have no doubt that at the time they believed they were doing the right thing.)
The crux of Jonah’s argument, however, seems to be that ticking bombs scenarios may force us to discard our idealistic morality for wartime Machiavellianism:
Opponents of torture/waterboarding hate these ticking time bomb scenarios not simply because they have no good response to them other than to wish them away as scare tactics and red herring fantasies. I suspect what they really don’t like about the ticking bomb scenario is that it undermines torture’s status as a taboo word.
I’m not sure Jonah really believes this (at least I hope he doesn’t). I suspect there are certain acts of torture that Jonah would not resort to even in a ticking bomb scenario. Like most civilized people, he would draw a line of behavior in which he would not cross. The same goes for Thiessen. As Ramesh Ponurru said, “Marc [Thiessen] presumably draws a line of his own somewhere. There is some rule he wouldn’t break though the heavens fall.” Thiessen agreed.
The problem with this approach, as John da Fiesole points out, is that the lines are arbitrary:
What will happen, though, if people who follow Thiessen’s own “though the heavens fall” rules are in charge of interrogation decisions when innocent lives will be lost if the rules aren’t broken? Innocent lives will be lost.
Are we then to keep swapping out increasingly lax decision-makers as the circumstances become more dire?
If Thiessen wants to argue that his own rules are better than the rules of others, he can, but the inductive claim he offers in these posts is also an argument that his own rules are worse than are less rigorous rules.
Would Jonah’s criticism hold up if it was his standard that would “undermines torture’s status as a taboo word?” What if rape were determined to be an effective means of interrogation? Would allowing that technique undermine the taboo?
Sadly, there are many Americans who don’t share the moral sensibilities of Goldberg and Thiessen. They would have no qualms about using any inhumane methods—rape, dismemberment, murder—since almost anything can be justified under a ticking bomb scenario. By redefining torture to mean whatever we are currently comfortable with doing, we are sliding down a slippery-slope of semantics that will eventually lead us to a place of moral horror.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:41 pm
Joe, re: “But by this logic, we should also be able to shoot them in the head or throw a live grenade into their cell.”
No, because he is unarmed and not a threat to those in his immediate vicinity, for example, the jailers — thus a noncombatant with respect to them. But he continues to be a very lethal combatant with respect to many innocents based on his “actionable knowledge” he possesses but won’t reveal. In effect, he is putting a gun to hundreds of innocent’s heads and will pull the trigger in a certain amount of time — unless stopped.
You can only use proportionate force in self-defense under U.S. criminal law. Killing an unarmed (as to the interrogators), but lethal enemy combatant (based on his information he is withholding) is stupid and not tailored to the situation. Just some thoughts.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:55 pm
No, because he is unarmed and not a threat to those in his immediate vicinity, for example, the jailers — thus a noncombatant with respect to them.
A combatant is, by definition, someone who is directly taking part in the hostilities of an armed conflict. Simply having knowledge of future actions is enough to change that status according to the laws of war. Otherwise, we could consider almost anyone—civilian or otherwise—to be a existential threat and torture them to see what they know.
We should be clear that the U.S has never considered having actionable knowledge to be justification for torturing one of our soldiers. If a WWII pilot had been captured by the Japanese we would not have overlooked his torture as being justified if he had knowledge of an impending nuclear attack.
If we say that it’s acceptable for us to torture when we suspect a prisoner has actionable knowledge, we have no moral right to say that our own combatants should not be tortured in order to give up what they know.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:08 pm
But he continues to be a very lethal combatant with respect to many innocents based on his “actionable knowledge” he possesses but won’t reveal.
That is the assumption, but only some times the case. Furthermore, the value of said actionable is quite variable in both importance and truth.
It’s because so much incidental harm is done in the name of good that the Catholic Church has concluded that the history of torture has not proven itself but has degraded the respect and protections of our inherent human dignity — and that includes our treatment of our enemies.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:16 pm
I remember Krauthammar citing the ticking bomb scenario as establishing the principle – saying all that was left to negociate was the price. I see it differently. To debase oneself in torturing the man, you have done evil – but evil possibly for the greatest of motives, and possibly (in the best case) with good results. This doesn’t establish any principle – rather, it shows us a person who violates a principle because of extreme utilitarian consequences. Such a person perhaps deserves our guilty thanks and a pardon. But exceptional cases make bad law.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:33 pm
Thanks. Those are good points which I hadn’t considered.
Am I wrong to think it seems — seems — as if certain definitions and assumptions need to be updated and reassessed from pre-9/11 days. E.g.: enemy combatant is not the WWI soldier in the trenches with a uniform on. Mass destruction can occur from a few people and advanced technology. EMPs can, at first, harm no one but ripples to kill thousands through chaos. Biological warfare could wipe out millions.
It makes sense to me for our Church to address these contemporary issues in light of Catholic moral theology. How does legitimate self-defense and the just war doctrice in Catholic tradition look in this “new world”?
January 8th, 2010 | 4:51 pm
This exchange has been thought provoking. Thank you.
Joe, let me ask you a question. Your response to Jonah’s ticking bomb justification is that we must have a bright line; otherwise we set ourselves on the slippery slope to rape and amputation, depending on the moral malleability of the interrogator.
What if Jonah responded: “Joe, your argument just shot down the just war doctrine. That doctrine has two parts: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The jus in bello part of the doctrine says that even if you have met the jus ad bellum standard, you must not prosecute the war by unjust means. This includes the concept that one should prosecute the war with the “minimum force necessary” to accomplish your war goals. That’s all well and good in theory, but the devil, as they say, is in the details, and surely you will agree that the “minimum force necessary” to prosecute any particular war is a matter of judgment about which people of good faith could disagree. Surely it is no valid criticism of the just war doctrine to suggest that we can never apply any force even if the conditions of jus ad bellum are clearly met, because we must have a bright line of “no violence ever,” because some people are so morally corrupt they would nuke Costa Rica if one of its fishing boats crossed into our territorial waters.
Now, let us apply these principles in the context under discussion. The “ticking bomb” Jonah suggests is the classic case of “jus ad bellum” (as it were) for the application of violence (I’ll just use that word instead of “torture” or “enhanced interrogation technique”) against a prisoner. Just as in the just war context, once we decide to apply violence to another nation, the amount of violence that is “just” to apply is a matter of judgment, about which people of good faith could disagree. And that does not really put us on the slippery slope to rape and amputation any more than the other condition would put us on the slippery slope of nuking Costa Rica. In other words, saying that a particular line might be fuzzy is not the same as saying that there is no line, and morally serious people can always agree when we are far away from even fuzzy line.
Joe, I have not made up my mind on this issue, and I am not arguing for one side or the other. I am genuinely interested in how you would respond to this logic.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:59 pm
Charles Am I wrong to think it seems — seems — as if certain definitions and assumptions need to be updated and reassessed from pre-9/11 days.
That’s a good question. I think that we do need to reevaluate some concepts because of the new context. But I think we also need to be careful in doin so. There is a real danger in thinking that this current situation is the way that will always continue. We are now fighting against an enemy that is state-less but that does not mean that we will never fight against states in the future.
I truly believe that we do not need to sacrifice our morals in order to fight terrorism. We can learn to adapt to the situation in a way that will lead to victory without changing who we are as a people.
And that is what I find so troubling about these discussions. Obviously, none of us are in positions in which we can make national policy that will affect this issue. But such debates can help us hone our own thinking about how far we are willing to go in order to achieve security.
Christians must always remember that we must take an eternal perspective. What we do now will have an impact not only today but for all of eternity.
January 8th, 2010 | 5:14 pm
Barry The jus in bello part of the doctrine says that even if you have met the jus ad bellum standard, you must not prosecute the war by unjust means. This includes the concept that one should prosecute the war with the “minimum force necessary” to accomplish your war goals.
Jus ad bello has at least three distinctive components: distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. Your question is about proportionality, but before that can be addressed we must first talk about distinction. If we were to ask, “What is the minimum force necessary we are allowed to use when targeting civilian noncombatants?” the obvious answer is “None.” The principle of distinction says that we are not allowed to target civilian noncombatants at all. Unfortunately, they may be killed because of indirect actions. But we are not allowed to target them.
The same is true for enemy noncombatants. The question of what level of torture can be applied must first get past the question, “What are we morally allowed to torture?” Even if there are some classes of enemy combatant that we could justify torturing, when they become a noncombatant the question is moot: We are not justified in torturing noncombatants according to jus ad bello.
I should also add that I don’t think God leaves us with no options but to violate these principles. I think—as do most military interrogators—that torture is not needed, even in ticking bomb situations to get the info we need. (Torture has never been proven to be successful in short-term information gathering situations. It is especially unlikely to be successful when dealing with people who are willing to be martyred for their idealogy.)
January 8th, 2010 | 7:23 pm
Charles, you make a very good point about re-evaluating Catholic teaching in the light of new modern realities. For instance, I understand that preemptive war is forbidden under the Just War Doctrine. I have trouble understanding this in an age of weapons of mass destruction.
January 8th, 2010 | 9:02 pm
Joe, unfortunately, I believe we are talking past each other. I quite agree that the just war doctrine allows for zero intentional violence against non-combatants. But I was not asking you to apply just war doctrine per se to this discussion. I was making an analogy to just war doctrine to address the slippery slope issue you raised in response to Jonah’s ticking bomb argument, and it seems you missed the argument entirely. At least you did not respond to it.
This is what you say:
BEGIN QUOTE: “Would Jonah’s criticism hold up if it was his standard that would “undermines torture’s status as a taboo word?” What if rape were determined to be an effective means of interrogation? Would allowing that technique undermine the taboo? Sadly, there are many Americans who don’t share the moral sensibilities of Goldberg and Thiessen. They would have no qualms about using any inhumane methods—rape, dismemberment, murder—since almost anything can be justified under a ticking bomb scenario. By redefining torture to mean whatever we are currently comfortable with doing, we are sliding down a slippery-slope of semantics that will eventually lead us to a place of moral horror. END QUOTE
You say that most anything can be justified by the ticking bomb scenario. But by the same reasoning, we could say that most any level of force could be “justified” once the jus ad bellum standard has been met. But we don’t take such a slippery slope argument seriously in the just war context, because we know that the doctrine goes on to require the application of the minimum force necessary in the jus in bello rules. We say: “The violence of this war is regrettable but necessary; nevertheless, we will not engage in any more violence in this war than is absolutely necessary.” Then we are waging a just war.
If we don’t let the slippery slope argument derail the just war doctrine, why should we let it derail the ticking bomb scenario? Why can’t we say: “The violence to be inflicted on this detainee to stop the exploding bomb is regrettable but necessary; nevertheless, we will not inflict any more violence on the detainee than is absolutely necessary.”
This is the analogy I hope you will address.
Finally, what do you say to those who say the Bible never proscribes violence against noncombatants but suggests it is appropriate in some instances: e.g, “a rod for the back of fools.” Prov. 26:3 “He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Prov. 13:24.
January 9th, 2010 | 4:53 pm
Again, there is not only a proscription against torture but a prescription of humane treatment of prisoners. Haggling over how far you can go with the first without considering the second doesn’t get you where you need to be.
In the end, the prescription is perhaps even more important: it offers a realistic and somewhat objective version of the Golden Rule – do not do unto our prisoners what we would not have done to ourselves as prisoners. This, happily, is also the reason career military since the days of George Washington have made this a bedrock principle (however violated at times in practice) of American policy. It’s just in recent years that we had the Orwellian issue of trying to define ourselves out of the policy.
January 9th, 2010 | 6:16 pm
At the end of the day, some of my friends would allow violence in the ticking bomb scenario, and some of my friends would proscribe violence even in that instance. Me, well I agree with my friends.
January 10th, 2010 | 10:02 pm
It might not change one’s opinion on whether torture (or enhanced interrogation techniques) are justified, but I wish we would stop calling people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “enemy non-combatants”. Let us at least be clear that these people are not conducting their war by any modern rules from which terms like “enemy non-combatants” come. They intentionally target civilians, they do not wear uniforms, and they do not treat their captives with any humanity. That does not mean we should treat them the same, but at least don’t use words that describe them as something they are not.
Also, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not some hapless foot soldier, he is a five-star general. Again, that might not mean we should use any and all means against him, but let’s remember who the rules of war were intended to protect–patriotic foot soldiers, not murderous tyrants.
In fact, the ancients were probably much wiser than we (what a surprise). When they captured the enemy king they put out his eyes, marched him through town in a victory parade, and cut off his head. Maybe if those at the top of the food chain in making war faced such an end more often they would be less enthusiastic about driving those under their sway into the maw of combat.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:27 am
I think Fr. Brian Harrison is better on this issue than just about anyone else.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7390&CFID=25570136&CFTOKEN=46568319
January 11th, 2010 | 10:38 am
Joe, you’re still not offering anyone a definition of torture. What constitutes it? What “bright line” separates some violence from another type or condition of violence such that some type, action, degree, or method is definitely violence but not ‘torture’ violence?
This isn’t a Whoopie “rape-rape” discussion. Rape has a definition. Molestation is not rape, but all rape is molestation. Hugging someone is not molestation, but molestation may involve or begin with hugging…. and so on.
All torture involves violence. But if all violence is not torture, what actions makes someone cross the line – if there IS a line?
You add waterboarding to the list. Fine. Now why? See the problem? If it truly is torture, and the Church (and reason) tells us torture is always bad, always evil, then fine, it’s always wrong, I’ll agree with you. But why? What about waterboarding makes it cross the line from violence to ‘torture’? Water? Is it the panic/fear of death?
So teaching a child to swim the first time might constitute intolerable child torture (at least subjectively for the child). Or doesn’t that count because the panic/fear of death isn’t intentional?
What about forcing someone to parachute from a plane? Is fear of death/panic automatically torture?
You insist that waterboarding is a) all the same regardless who did it and b) in anyevent, the term is on the list by dutiful authorities and a tradition of torture methods which include the rack, thumbscrews, amputation etc.. OK. But again, why?
Can we go from any particular method to discover a universally applicable set of criteria for deciding what is and is not torture or must we only go on the sacred “list of bad things” compiled by your list of experts who insist this or that is torture “just because”?
January 11th, 2010 | 4:18 pm
Our Church has an almost 2,000 year tradition of trying to use reason to deal with difficult moral issues.
The idea that all we can get from KSM is name, rank (doesn’t have one) and serial number (doesn’t have one) because we are incapable of deciding where interrogation ends and torture begins completely ignores that intellectual history.
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