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December 10, 2005
The Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford

Tortured Logic

     The apologists for torture have been crawling out from under their rocks, apparently drawn by the putrid smell of death. Or perhaps they just feel that it is safe to come out because they recognize George Bush and Dick Cheney as their own ilk, and feel protected. Whatever their motives, they are on television sets across the nation, spewing their bilious lies in defense of torture.

     In order to seem even halfway cogent, they routinely resort to a hypothetical argument which has never existed in reality, and which is unlikely to ever exist. They say “what if we caught a terrorist who had planted a nuclear bomb in a city, and we knew that it was going to explode if we didn’t disarm it, but we couldn’t find it, and the terrorist refused to tell us how to find it? We could torture him then, couldn’t we? Pretty please?” That’s not an actual quote, but it accurately summarizes one of the main arguments these worms have been making.

     It is important to understand that this is the same type of argument that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. We were told that it was a “no brainer” and a “slam dunk” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and so the end (protecting ourselves) justified the means (an invasion which was illegal under international law). Somehow that argument did not hold up very well because of faulty intelligence.

     Anytime you are dealing with a terrorist plot you are going to have the same types of uncertainties regarding the accuracy of your information, because the terrorists make every effort to disguise their intentions. They are also going to put out false intelligence about fake plots, because that is also going to help keep the terror level high while disguising their real intentions. You are never really going to know with any certainty whether the bomb plot is real.

     But for the sake of argument, lets take this ridiculous hypothetical situation, and try a couple of variations to see where it takes us. This “end justifies the means” argument is a very slippery slope. What if it wasn’t a nuclear bomb, but only a conventional bomb that would kill 1,000 people, or 100, or 10? Would they say that you should still torture the terrorist? There is no principled basis for them to draw a line where torture is no longer permitted.

     Suppose you haven’t caught the alleged terrorist, but you know who he is and you have the terrorist’s wife and children in custody. According to the logic of the apologists for torture, shouldn’t you torture the wife and children, to get the terrorist to come forward with the information about the nuclear bomb? If the end justifies the means, then torturing the family is justified by the need to protect ourselves. You should even broadcast images of the torture on television, to increase the psychological pressure on the terrorist. We have to save the city, don’t we?

     Or suppose you don’t know who the terrorist is, but you have 500 people in custody, and you know that the terrorist is definitely one of those 500. Shouldn’t you torture all of them, so that the one real terrorist will give you the information you need? By the logic of the apologists for torture, you could even torture 500,000 people if it would save a city of one million. For them, there is no atrocity that cannot be committed, because the end justifies the means.

     For the rest of us, there are certain lines that cannot be passed. With respect to torture, that line has been clearly drawn by the nations of the world. They have signed and ratified binding international treaties banning torture in all circumstances. The United States is a signatory to those treaties, and when it violates them, it is committing a crime against humanity under international law.

     I have not even touched on other arguments against torture such as the fact that it does not produce reliable information, that it undermines our moral position in the world community, and it produces more terrorists than it takes out of circulation.

     The next time you see someone arguing that torture is a legitimate tool, give them a copy of this column and tell them to crawl back under their rock where they belong. Don’t feel like you need to be polite about it either.







Kevin Morford is a political activist and an attorney in private practice in the Anchorage area.  He can be reached at kmorford@insurgent49.com.
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The
Bramble Bush
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in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.