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Thursday, January 29, 2009

A Brief Response to Mark Shea

Mark Shea hails my recent post on torture and Obama's executive orders:
After years and years of incredible nuance on behalf of Bush Administration torture policies ("Golly, what *is* torture anyway! It's all so confusing!"), after years of warm and sympathetic hearings for any and all arguments that, however tendentious, explain away the obvious teaching of the Church in a cloud of sophistry, after playing empathetic host all the usual suspect from the Ladies' Gossip Sewing Circle--shazam! ...

Having a day job (imagine that), I was initially going to compose a point-by-point rebuttal to Shea's latest.

Re-reading his rant, however, I won't even dignify it with that.

A sober perusal of my prior posts on the subject will discern the nature of my disagreement with Shea: that any legitimate disagreements with the Bush administration that could be mounted are obfuscated by his tendency to play fast and loose with the facts; imbue dubious motives to his critics, and substitute the virtual equivalent of sheer playground bullying for civil, rational and charitable debate -- which has, over the course of the past three years, alienated a number of erstwhile friends and readers within the Catholic online community who would have otherwise supported him.

For a single-post summary of my dispute with Mark Shea, see: "Rewarding Bad Behavior" Against The Grain June 14, 2007.

Prior relevant posts on the "torture debate"

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Rewarding Bad Behavior?

On Fr. Neuhaus and Mark Shea

I have over the course of the past two years joined many others in their increasing discomfort with the way Mark Shea has conducted himself as a Catholic apologist in the public sphere -- in his clear misrepresentation of others' positions and treatment of those with whom he disagrees by the imputation of the worst possible motives.

Back in August 2006, I took issue with what I took to be an unfair and cynical characterization of the position of William Kristol and "neoconservatives":

But as long as you support war in Lebanon, war in Iraq and a "war-fighting Republican Party," in the Weekly Standard's phrase, you get a pass on everything else. Beat the drum for permanent war for global democracy and against Islamo-fascism, and all other sins are forgiven you. . . .

And it's quite clear that, for the neocons, the only thing that matters is war and the entire prolife movement and social conservative types can drop dead. The Neocons are All About Power and Realpolitik. Conservatives are morphing into the mirror of their postmodern nihilistic Leftist opponents.

and in a subsequent post I responded to the strange manner in which Mark's commentary on social and political issues had illustrated a reliance upon strings of jingles and catchphrases which bore little resemblance to the complexities of reality (and usually directed at the neocon shibboleth).

To cite but just two examples:

. . . "War Zealots and Master Planners with big ideas for a New American Century based on "creative destruction" and other Machiavellian schemes" (Catholic and Enjoying It August 19, 2006).

". . . the Creative Destructionist Righty who promises an End to Evil and the triumph of the New American Century via murder of wounded combatants and torture, . . . (Catholic and Enjoying It August 17, 2006).

Besides the fact that such phrases simply make no coherent sense to the reader even moderately acquainted with the many facets of neoconservatism and its proponents, my concern was the general impact this form of "arguing" would have on the discussion in general. I had likewise voiced this concern in his combox on several occasions (engaging Mark directly over his constant reference to "The Rubber Hose Right"), and entertained the hope that he would grow out of it.

Unfortunately, in the months that followed it became apparent that this combination of soundbytes with inflammatory rhetoric -- what one might expect from, say, Bill Maher, Michael Moore and other liberal pundits -- was simply becoming the norm.

This concern cemented itself with Mark's role in the so-called "torture debate" in the online Catholic blogging community. For what it's worth, here were my contributions to "the torture debate": On Torture, "Aggressive Interrogation" and The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Part I), Part II and Part III.

Part II and III specifically concern themselves with Mark Shea's comments, especially on the matter of the Abu Ghraib scandal. While I share similar concerns about the policies and conduct of the Bush administration and the lack of accountability, I find that pounding the table and asserting that "Dick Cheney wants more Abu Ghraibs" (to quote Shea), that "virtually the entire field of GOP Candidates and most of the Allegedly Conservative Punditocracy Favors [beating a man to death]" (to quote Shea again), or that the only reason "people were prosecuted and sent to jail [for Abu Ghraib] is because it would have been political suicide not to do so" (Shea yet again) really does nothing to advance the discussion.

On the matter of the "Rubber Hose Right", I would also note that both Michael Ledeen and John Derbyshire have penned forceful columns against torture in the National Review.

So has Victor Davis Hanson for that matter, who Mark recently dismissed as a "Pagan Realpolitik Zealot."

And the virtual mouthpiece of the neoconservative movement -- The Weekly Standard -- has published articles criticizing the Bush administration's practice of rendition and in support of a uniform standard prohibiting detainee abuse.

I have endeavored to point out all of this to Mark on numerous occasions (on this blog and in his combox), but he's quite wedded to his current approach of slamming the "Rubber Hose Right" and "The Torture Party" en masse -- which sacrifices clarity for convenience and actually has the unfortunate effect of alienating possible allies on the right (not to mention fellow Catholics).

* * *

This pattern of verbal abuse extends itself to other topics as well. Sadly, when Mark moves from hurling general broadsides at political parties ("Tweedledum" and "Tweedledee") and takes aim at specific individuals, his remarks are not merely ignorant and comical. Rather, to concur with Sydney Carton, his "so-called sarcasm is intensely personal, characteristic of a vindictivness that is surprising."

The matter of Mark's libel against Michael Ledeen has been explored and documented in the past; I wish to cite three more examples of such misrepresentation and unjust treatment:

Mark Shea on Michael Novak

As part of the trio of 'Catholic neocons', Michael Novak (along with Neuhaus and George Weigel) receives a great deal of criticism for expressing his personal support of the Iraq war and the foreign policy of the Bush administration in general. Whilte Fr. Neuhaus is curiously absent from Mark's criticism, his remarks about Novak leave much to be desired:

  • July 2004 - In a column for the National Review (Why the Dems Will Lose), Novak expressed the following sentiment:
    I find it hard to believe that the Creator who gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq — their 50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign.
    Novak's phrasing is a bit "over the top", and he raises some puzzled eyebrows and chatter over at Amy Welborn's. But while Patrick Sweeney ("Novak makes the obvious-to-all point that Bush took the risk of doing something unpopular because he believed he needed to protect American lives"), Maclin Horton ("[Novak expresses] the hope that God will bless Mr. Bush's work and the opinion that it deserves blessing: certainly debatable points, but not so very bizarre as all that"), Rich Leonardi ("A charitable reading of this section of the piece would infer that Novak hopes Providence plays a role in aiding Bush, since he acknowledges that things don't always work out the way we think they should") and Christopher [Fotos] ("This is an unremarkable yearning that God will favor what, in Novak's eyes (and mine), is the good guy") offer charitable interpretations, Mark siezes upon the opportunity to bash Novak as neocon "court theologian":
    Michael Novak acts as Court Prophet for the Bushies.

    I think T. Marzen gets it just about right over on Amy's blog.

    Novak's vocation as paid Neocon Court Theologian has led to this, has it? Bush's "willingness to sacrifice his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq"? How glorious! How noble! Never mind about the lives of the American soldiers and Middle Eastern civilians that were sacrificed to the Goddess Liberty.

    This is really nutty. But Novak’s honesty (or revealing lapse) does provide us an open glimpse of what really makes these guys tick. Next thing he'll be advocating is for us to offer a pinch of incense to whoever is current American Caesar (at least if he’s a Republican).

    Memo to Novak: The central story of history is about the progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the success of the American Experiment and the Triumph of Our Way of... well, not "Life" exactly (given that we are busily attempting to establish two sins that cry out to heaven as fundamental human right and laboring to invent new evil via biotech), but "Doing Things".

  • October 2004 - Novak is once again treated to ridicule:
    Some people failed to get Michael Novak's memo about the universal longing for liberty

    Not a few people would very much prefer to be tagged like sheep. After all, an extremely powerful alliance of business, science, and political power will always want to take care of us and would never hurt or exploit us. It's part of the blessed assurance we have from the Holy Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

    Strangely, Novak's book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, had little if any relevance to the subject Mark was addressing in this post. (I may as well pose the question here, as often as he pokes fun at the title, has Shea even read it?)

  • November 2004 - In a guest post from a reader endorsed by Shea, Novak's pre-war visit to Rome is dismissed as "the height of intellectual arrogance" (In a post to First Things' blog, Novak provides the context and details of his visit to the Vatican, noting in part the curia's reaction).

  • March 22, 2006 - Adopting what has not become his as-of-late "pox upon both your houses" approach to U.S. politics, Shea took yet another a swipe at Novak:
    This is why I'd like to see a healthy Dem party re-emerge. Opposite evils, so far from balancing, aggravate one another. A Wilsonian Drunken Sailor Safety Through Torture Right inflames an hysterical angry vengeful Left. Meanwhile, when Elephants and Donkeys fight, it is the grass that suffers. The Left fanatically aims for the maximum number of babies to die, while the Right continues pissing away our grandchildrens savings and trying to make the world into the image and likeness of Michael Novak through the exportation of our democratic capitalist system at the point of a gun (only to wind up with Muslims who tend to see the image and likeness of Madonna instead--and to to hate us all the more).
    Once more in the combox, Daniel Darling, Sydney Carton and others engage in a futile endeavor to educate Shea as to Michael Novak's actual thought, with little success.

  • March 23, 2006 [Update] - Mark Shea attempts to downplay his earlier ridicule of Novak and bolster his case for his criticism of neoconservatism that "they are basically arguing that democracy capitalism will fix the Islamosphere":
    . . . I don't think Michael Novak is a bad guy. I do think that the attempts by the Money and Power guys who are writing policy to hold up Novak as a sort of Voice of Catholic Teaching Blessing our Policies vs. the Euroweenie opinions of our Peacenik Pope and his Clueless Bishops was highly cynical. I wish Novak had been more vociferous in saying that it is precisely at the moment when the whole world is shouting for one thing and an almost unanimous chorus of bishops is saying "Whoa!" that the duty of the Catholic is to inform his conscience with the teaching of the Church, not join the shouting throng. But I also think Novak is not a materialist so much as a guy who has been beating the drum of democratic capitalism for a long time and who naturally gravitated toward people who found him...useful.
    So instead of Novak the "Court Theologian to the Bushies", we have Michael Novak the useful and exploitable peon by the Money and Power Neocons.

    Again in the combox, Ed Graham, Paul Zummo, and Daniel Darling -- displaying a comprehension of what 'neoconservative' foreign policy actually entails (and what Michael Novak himself really proposes in his book) -- attempt to provide a basic education in political thought.

I do not expect Mark Shea to agree with Novak -- but as co-founder of Crisis magazine (one of the journalistic outlets Shea has written for), and even (dare I say) as a fellow Catholic, perhaps a modicum of respect and a fair and accurate presentation of his thought would be in order?

Mark Shea on Tom McKenna

In November 2006, responding to Mr. Tom McKenna on the matter of sentencing Saddam Hussein:

Tom McKenna is Predictably Angry with Me

Reason: I demonstrate an insufficiently insatiable hunger and thirst for death, death, death, and more death, so that means I regard Saddam as a victim, you see.

McKenna, whose blog is more or less devoted to obsessing over how to execute as many people as humanly possible, is naturally orgasmic at the idea of hanging Saddam. Failure to be thrilled at the death of a human being and a general agreement with Pope John Paul that it's better to forego executing people unless you really need to is, for McKenna the ultimate crime and the source of numberless entries on his vengeful blog.

At the time, Mr. McKenna was expressing his personal frustration with the comments of Cardinal Martino on the execution of Saddam ("punishing a crime with another crime"). He was certainly not alone among Catholic bloggers in doing so (see fellow apologist Jimmy Akin).

Nor was McKenna alone in expressing confusion over what he perceived to be the embrace of an 'abolitionist' mentality on capital punishment by the Vatican. Other Catholics like Justice Antonin Scalia (Antonin Scalia and His Critics: The Church, the Courts, and the Death Penalty in First Things and Michael Dunnigan ("The Purposes of Punishment" CHRISTIFIDELIS Sept. 14, 2003) have expressed similar concerns about the present faming of this issue in the Catechism.

One can certainly sympathize with Mark's inclination to defend John Paul II against McKenna's criticism, but Mark's decision to paint his subject in the worst possible light ("devoted to obsessing over how to execute as many people as humanly possible" and "naturally orgasmic at the idea of hanging Saddam") only greatly impeded this effort (much less the possibility of a fair and civil exchange on Shea's blog).

Incidentally, Tom McKenna happens to be a criminal prosecutor by profession. "Orgasmic at the idea of an execution"? Devoted to "death, death and more death"? -- No, but as he reminds us, he HAS "had to sit with the families of murder victims and witness first hand the social, moral, and personal destruction wrought by murderers", and one of the necessary obligations of his office is to weigh the "proportionate, careful use of the death penalty."

Mark Shea on Norman Podhoretz

In May 2007 Mark used the death of a U.S. soldier to smear Norman Podhoretz:

Another Cubicle Dweller Has More Plans for More Andy Baceviches

When it comes to Grand End to Evil Planners, no sacrifice of other people's children is too much.

No doubt, criticial commentary on Norman Podhoretz's "The Case for Bombing Iran (Commentary ) might be ventured. But again, here is not so much an attempt to engage Podhoretz's argument as simply to mock, and imbue the worst of motives. This is what passes for a "response" in Mark's eyes. (Sydney Carton is to be commended for his attempting to reason with Mark in the combox and demonstrate where he might have been amiss in his depiction).

* * *

I want to reiterate: my criticism of Mark is not motivated by personal disagreement with the content of his position. There are some issues on which we disagree and a great deal more on which we are in clear agreement. And on the matter of the conduct of the Bush administration and their prosecution of the war in Iraq and even its defenders, reasonable criticisms should and has been made. But if you hope to persuade somebody of your position on the war or any other issue, fostering an environment conducive to civil exchange and accurately presenting your opponent's positions will work in your favor.

To quote Fr. John Courtney Murray, SJ:

Barbarism likewise threatens when men cease to talk together according to reasonable laws. There are laws of argument, the observance of which is imperative if discourse is to be civilized. Argument ceases to be civil when it is dominated by passion and prejudice . . . when dialogue gives way to a series of monologues . . . when the parties to the conversation cease to listen to one another, or hear only what they want to hear, or see the other's argument only through the screen of their own categories; when defiance is flung to the basic ontological principle of all ordered discourse, which asserts that Reality is an analogical structure, within which there are variant modes of reality, to each of which there corresponds a distinctive method of thought that imposes on argument its own special rules. When things like this happen, men cannot be locked together in argument. Conversation becomes merely quarrelsome or querulous. Civility dies with the death of the dialogue.
One need only spend a little time with Mark Shea online to see that his conduct and treatment of others is the antithesis of civil discourse and Christian charity.

On Fr. Neuhaus' Foreward

It is at this point I'd like to note Mark's mention of Fr. Neuhaus' decision to write a foreward to his upcoming book. I have been a subscriber to First Things for decades (at least since I was in college) and have long-admired the journal as an example of how the free exchange of ideas ought to occur.

For example, it's refreshing to pick up a magazine and see such disparate parties as George Weigel, Peter Griffiths, Rowan Williams and Stanley Hauerwaus weigh in on just war theory in the pages of a single journal; or Cardinal Dulles and Justice Scalia debate the contemporary application of capital punishment and its presentation in the Catechism -- contrast this with the daily dose of polemics and what merely passes for debate on, say, Fox News and even on many blogs. And if First Things has been a model of civil discussion, Fr. Neuhaus has exemplified the same -- both in his own writing and in his response to various critics.

Now contrast this with Shea's caricatures of neoconservatives in general as "Money and Power Firsters" who are "All About Power and Realpolitik" and "pissing away our grandchildrens savings and trying to make the world into the image and likeness of Michael Novak through the exportation of our democratic capitalist system at the point of a gun" to the more recent (and completely absurd) fulminations about "sinister rhetoric of Creative Destruction that is animating the latest Big Thinkers in their Wilsonian/Machiavellian attempts to create heaven on earth" -- and his persistent slander and obstinate misrepresentation of countless individuals. . . .and you have an inkling of why I am absolutely baffled that Neuhaus would, at this particular time, commend Mr. Shea in the form of an introduction to his forthcoming book.

It is a strange and disappointing move for someone dedicated to fostering -- in his own words -- a "civil public square."

* * *

Update

A reader had responded to me privately posing the question of whether -- as opposed of being dishonest -- Mark Shea was merely out of his league, his present approach and blogging style masquing an ignorance of the complexities of the political situation.

Judge for yourself with tonight's post:

"Change--above all violent change--is the essence of human history." - Michael Ledeen

Labels: Salvation Through Leviathan By Any Means Necessary

posted by Mark at 4:31 PM

Mark Shea links to a CBS News story about U.S. soldiers rescuing "24 special-needs boys from a Baghdad orphanage after finding the children suffering in horrific conditions" in a government-run orphanage:

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys.

"I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said.

"The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," Lt. Stephen Duperre said.

Fortunately, the neglected kids were saved by U.S. troops (on routine patrol), and the perpetrators are now under arrest and detained by the Iraqi government.

It's a brutal story, but let's face reality: it could happen anywhere, indeed probably has happened, in every major city in the U.S. (and then some). Want to experience the loss of humanity? The callous neglect of the poor and suffering? Turn on the six o'clock news.

So why, may I ask, would Mark deliberately choose to link to the story in such a way as to suggest that Michael Ledeen is responsible? To suggest that Ledeen condones this kind of abuse?

Got me.

I posed this question twice in the combox -- deleted on both counts.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin, Fr. Harrison and the "Torture Debate"

In my last post (What do I think about torture?) I tried to lay out my thoughts on the subject and my own opinions on various issues discussed in the previous roundups. Mark responded by stating:
My assessment of what you wrote, Chris, is pretty much the same as M.Z.'s and Zippy's.
I'm going to ask Mark to humor me one more time, as I'll endeavor to illustrate a source of much confusion and disappointment.

When I read Fr. Harrison (circa Sept. 2005):

[T]here remains the question [...] of torture inflicted not for any of the above purposes, but for extracting life-saving information from, say, a captured terrorist known to be participating in an attack that may take thousands of lives (the now-famous ?ticking bomb? scenario). As we have noted above, this possible use of torture is not mentioned in the Catechism.. . . My understanding would be that, given the present status question is, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians.
His speculations on this matter ring no different to me than those of Jimmy Akin (circa June 2004):
The Catechism's discussion of torture (CCC 2298) focuses significantly on the motive that is being pursued in different acts of torture. If it means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture . . .

For example, the Catechism's list of motives for torture does not mention the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives. It thus might turn out that it is not torture to twist a terrorist's arm behind him and demand that he tell you where he planted a bomb so that it can be defused and innocents can be saved. Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.

I would be disinclined to go the route of saying that torture is not always wrong. I think that the Church is pretty clearly indicating in its recent documents that it wants the word "torture" used in such a way that torture is always wrong. However, I don't think that the Magisterium has yet thoroughly worked out all the kinds of "hard case" situations one can imagine and whether they count as torture.

As Dave Armstrong suspected after his brief stint in the debate, the problem is semantics:
I've come to the conclusion that the debate on this comes down to mostly semantics and personal hostilities. I saw that early on when I realized that folks (including myself at first) were sloppy in differentiating the terms "torture" and "coercion" in various contexts, thus leading to further confusion (within the framework of cynicism and suspicion on both sides).

Fr. Harrison equates "torture" with "the infliction of severe pain." This leads him to conclude that "the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion" -- something which is incoherent, if torture is understood to be something that is intrinsically evil. (I'm well aware what "intrinsic" means and what it implies).

For Jimmy Akin, there are cases of torture (intrinsically evil). But there are also cases where coercion -- even coercion by "the infliction of severe pain" -- might be legitimate: "the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives." Thus for Jimmy, "Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons," and "it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture."

I suppose if you posed the question to Fr. Harrison, he might agree with Jimmy Akin that there are acts which are "commonly described as torture" which are not, in fact, such. Jimmy Akin and Fr. Harrison may differ in their labeling, but they both seem to agree that in some cases (the "24" or "ticking bomb" scenario), coercion by physical force (to some degree) to obtain information for the purpose of saving innocent lives might be legitimate. Both appear to be mutually agreed that this remains an open topic of discussion among Catholic moral theologians (and Catholic apologists and bloggers to boot).

Now -- Mark / Zippy -- here is where I am confused:

1) You (Zippy) see Jimmy Akin's stance as problematic. At least I have that hunch, given your insistence:

At some point, no doubt at a different point for each individual, it is going to dawn on people that "torture is intrinsically evil" and "under these different circumstances the same act isn't torture and is therefore permissable" are mutually contradictory statements.

2)You (Mark), obviously see Fr. Harrison's position as problematic, yet refrain from confronting Jimmy Akin, and likewise insist "I agree with Zippy."

The confusion is compounded by the fact that the speculations of Tom McKenna -- with respect to the Catechism -- are hardly distinguishable from Jimmy's.

Jimmy's speculation that

"if [the Catechism] means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture" . . . Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.
sounds much akin to these ears to Tom McKenna's speculation that:
. . . the Catechism, by its plain language, it is directed at the motivation of the conduct, not the content of the conduct. Hence it rejects torture intended to produce confessions, punish the guilty, etc. But the methods we use against our enemies (which again, are not "torture" under civil law) are not engaged in to induce confessions. We use these methods to secure actionable intelligence about our enemies. What Lyndie England did might arguably fall under this definition, since she was motivated by hatred or some other illegitimate motive. What a trained interrogator might uncover through controlled, judicious use of such methods is clearly not encompassed by this definition.
(Indeed, as deplorable as those abuses which occurred at Abu Ghraib were, what is put on display by the Fox Network in the television show 24 could be said to be far worse. However, I do not intend to spark a specific discussion of the precise acts used under "desparate circumstances" -- only the similarities of the arguments).

Here, again, I think Zippy would find both the reasoning of Jimmy and McKenna problematic. Yet Mark maintains a certain silence with respect to Jimmy, tears into McKenna, and insists to me that he "agrees with Zippy."

But consider what Mark has to say, for instance, about the use of the '24 scenario':

The particular guy I cite achieves his sleight of hand defense of torture by quoting the Catechism and attempting to say that what the Church *really* means is that torture which is not committed for a good purpose is bad, but that *good* torture (done by decent folk for a good end such as saving Keifer Sutherland in the Real World of "24") is okay.
The "particular guy" Mark cites is not Jimmy Akin but rather Tom McKenna -- who, if you follow the link, didn't even mention the television show.

Q: Would Mark's criticism of the "24 scenario" apply to Jimmy Akin?

* * *

In February 2006, Jimmy Akin offered the following clarification of his earlier remarks on torture in Mark's combox:

I believe that the Church has exercised its authentic magisterium in condemning the use of torture, and this cannot be safely ignored. The problem is that the Magisterium has not yet provided us with a precise description of what counts as torture, and thus it is presently a matter of debate whether particular practices are or are not torture.

I also would hold that, whatever torture is (when properly defined), it is intrinsically evil and thus cannot be justified by circumstances. The question is whether all things that are regarded by some as torture actually are torture. It may turn out that some things that some individuals call "torture" are not actually torture, just as some things that are commonly regarded as the sin of theft are not actually the sin of theft (e.g., taking food from a person who has plenty when you are starving and he will not sell it to you).

Again, I think Jimmy's argument fails to elude Zippy's criticism. If there are mitigating circumstances that would lead one to conclude that what appears as theft ISN'T theft, there might also be mitigating circumstances where "some things that some individuals call "torture" are not actually torture."

I don't think this kind of talk would wash with Zippy, whether it came from Akin or Harrison or Victor Morton or Tom McKenna. And to these ears, it all sounds pretty much the same.

Which is why I am puzzled by Mark's reluctance to offer any further response to Jimmy Akin than:

Thanks, Jimmy. That's pretty much what I took you to mean."
Proceeding to spend the rest of this year, in post after post, laying into Fr. Harrison, Victor Morton, Tom McKenna, Chris Fotos, et al. in his usual vitriolic style -- and insisting that his assessment of this position "is pretty much the same as Zippy's."

In a nutshell, this inconsistency in Mark's approach is a cause of much consternation by those who have been on the receiving end of Mark's deprecation at Catholic & Enjoying It.

* * *
Jimmy Akin, you come late into this debate and I won't put upon you to read the reams of comments and heated exchanges between all of us. However, in your last post on the subject, you had mentioned "if folks are interested, I can try to offer further thoughts in the future."

Sorry to put you on the spot here, but I would be most appreciative were you to follow up with your own analysis of Fr. Harrison's two-part survey and conclusions drawn -- and perhaps clarify your own position on the topic: under what criteria would actions "commonly described as torture" not, in fact, be such?.

If I've mistakenly interpreted your remarks on this subject, let me know and I'll stand corrected. (Likewise to everybody else).

* * *

I'm going to cease blogging on this matter in pursuit of other topics (collective sigh of relief from the combox). There isn't much more I can add at this point. I do thank Zippy and company at Enchiridion Militis for engaging my comment, and I'll be following that discussion, as well as the other exchanges noted here.

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Sunday, November 12, 2006

So what do I think about Torture?

In what has become the characteristic approach of Catholic and Enjoying It, Mark dismisses a post by Tom McKenna by saying that he was "orgasmic at the idea of hanging Saddam," that his "blog is more or less devoted to obsessing over how to execute as many people as humanly possible," and that he had an "insatiable hunger and thirst for death, death, death, and more death."

Responding with what has likewise become my characteristic rejection of Mark's approach (played out over the course of a three-part series on Mark's treatment of the 'neocons' in August 2006 and a four-part series on "the torture debate" in October 2006), Mark expresses his frustration with my "fair and balanced act."

ZippyCatholic likewise issues a challenge:

"It is all well and good to link to a lot of what other people say and think, though of course any "roundup" is going to have biases built into it (if for no other reason than that not every opinion has the merit to be put on an equal platform with every other opinion, as evidenced by Christopher's failure to publish the opinions of Catholics for a Free Choice with the same noncommital dispassion as he publishes the opinions of the Coalition).

But what do you think is true, Christopher? Do you actually have any opinions of your own, or do we have to glean them implicitly by reading the tea leaves in what you do and do not choose to publish in your "roundups"? Can't we all agree that someone must be wrong? . . .

These things aren't OK. Christopher presents some of them as if they are OK. If his point is "Mark is right in substance on these issues, but I wish he was different in how he approached them rhetorically" then Christopher is more than capable of just saying that outright. I suspect he doesn't say that because that isn't his position in fact. And I would have more respect for his position if he would just come out and say what it is outright, come out and own it rather than posting endless roundups and leaving us to guess from his editorial decisions where he is coming from himself

Jeff comes to my defense in Shea's combox, followed by Victor Morton in a post to his own blog (here and here).

Nonetheless, I think it fair to provide Zippy with a summary of where I stand on various issues in the past several roundups on torture.

Read more!

On Torture, "Aggressive Interrogation" and The Military Commissions Act of 2006 Against The Grain October 2, 2006.

  • I began this post by citing approvingly Jonah Goldberg's criticism of how the "torture debate" has progressed so far:
    It steals a base to say that the Bush Administration wants to legalize torture because you first have to demonstrate that what they want to do is torture. I think it is a perfectly defensible and honorable position to claim that waterboarding, sleep deprivation etc. amount to torture. I don't think I agree with that view. But I certainly believe it is made in good faith. But the good faith ends when the same people then issue blanket and sweeping assertions that the people who want to legalize those actions are simply pro-torture. If the legalizers were simply pro-torture they would favor hot pokers, iron maidens, finger-nail-yanking and the rest.
    I'm not sure if Jonah reads Catholic & Enjoying It, but it is a good assessment nonetheless of why a good number of fellow Catholic bloggers I know have either vacated that blog or remained only to point out why this approach doesn't work.

  • I also agree with Evan's comment on the need for "better definition of if/when tactics like sleep deprevation, etc. can be used so that guards/soliders can't be brought to trial for simply doing things they felt were acceptable". As I stated myself:
    in order to condemn an action, you have to be in a position to recognize and define what it is. Especially when defining and implementing legal regulations pertaining to "the laws of war" and prisoner interrogation, I don't see how you can go about formulating such criteria without discussing the range of actions taken.
    To concur with Fr. Neuhaus: "The task is to draw as bright a line as possible between coercion and torture, and to forbid the latter absolutely."

  • In my first post, I had offered from the Catechism what at first read seemed a cut-and-dry rebuttal to the "But didn't the Church use Torture?" argument. However, the introduction of the two-part history by Fr. Harrison (which I was unaware of at the time of my initial writing) has since persuaded me that JPII and the Catechism's cursory paragraph-long treatment of this issue is insufficient, and I am largely appreciative of Harrison's contribution to this debate. (I will elaborate on this in a bit).

  • In the section, "Does Torture Ever "Work"?", I pointed to two historical cases demonstrating that torture did, indeed, "work" -- one of which was Oplan Bojinka, involving the interrogation of Hakim Murad -- co-conspirator of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef -- who was caught by the Philippine police in 1995 and revealed plots to crash 11 commercial airliners into the Pacific Ocean. To divert attention from the airline bombings, there was a concurrent plot to kill Pope John Paul II when he visited the Philippines during the World Youth Day 1995 celebrations.

    In a subsequent discussion with Victor Morton on this subject, I learned what "tactical interrogative" techniques were used by the Manila police to obtain this information and foil Al Qaeda's plans. I do not approve of the measures taken, but at the same time, I think it is certainly legitimate to inquire what techniques should be employed in instances where a terrorist is captured with concrete evidence of a plot and reasonable suspicion exists (in the case of Bojinka, plans for the attack were discovered on a laptop, after police investigated a fire in Yousef's apartment). This should put to rest Mark's assertion that "24 scenarios" simply don't exist. If it happened once, there is a good expectation that our military and intelligence operatives will encounter such a situation again.

  • Just for the record, I have asserted my opposition to waterboarding. I also rejected the argument from one milblogger I read that, since our own government employs waterboarding in the training of our special forces, it would be acceptable to inflict it on our enemies. Training our troops to endure such practices (with the expectation that they would be subjected to them by the enemy) does not necessarily legitimize our use of them.

    On that note, I might as well add that I consider "Palestinian hanging" and "cold cells" (involving the deliberate attempt to induce hypothermia) to be torture and morally indefensible as well.

What do I think about The Military Commissions Act?

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) was the primary subject of my first roundup and my motivation for rounding up resources, responses and commentary. If I recall, it was the legislation that sparked Mark's accusations that the Bush administration "wanted more Abu Ghraibs."

I highlighted passages in Byron York's article ("The Detainee Deal: The White House Won — and So Did McCain" National Review Sept. 22, 2006) that appeared positive, as well as indications of concern ("the status of the most notorious of those techniques, waterboarding, is not quite clear").

I also posted a link to the actual text of the legislation, because -- silly me -- I assumed that if we were discussing it, we might want to read it ourselves.

I am not a legal scholar, so when it comes to forming my own judgement on the MCA I try to find and examine the informed criticism from both sides. For this reason I've linked to a roundup by legal scholars like John M. Balkin, as well as some counter responses -- The New Detainee Law Does Not Deny Habeas Corpus, by Andrew C. McCarthy (National Review October 3, 2006; The Constitution, Writ or Wrong, by Adam J. White (Weekly Standard October 5, 2006) -- that question, for instance, Sen. Arlen Spectre's assertion that the MCA "take[s] our civilization back 900 years," to before the adoption of the writ of habeas corpus in medieval England.

I have not yet concluded on the legislation, but given the liberties the CIA has taken with interrogation in the past decades, I think an open discussion and some attempt at regulation is a positive thing. The full implications of the MCA won't be known until it is put into practice -- Stephen Rickard believes it may actually have an opposite effect than what its critics are claiming ("Interrogators Beware" Washington Post Oct. 17th). Time will tell and I'll likely be looking more at this in the future.

While I think people should have given it more attention, the focus of 'the Catholic blogosphere' was on the interpretation of magisterial documents on the subject, which was the subject of subsequent roundups.

* * *

My subsequent roundups cover similar aspects of the debate as I tried to tie together various discussions in the Catholic blogosphere.

In my second post I disagreed with the proposal that raising questions about the validity of certain interrogation procedures and whether they constitute torture is tantamount to deceitfully asking "how close can I come to committing torture without actually doing so," -- which Mark Shea thought was comparable to asking how close can one get before committing adultery. Suffice to say I think fellow Catholics asking such questions do not harbor this intent. To quote Rich Leonardi:

Detention and interrogation are legitimate; cruelty and torture are not. Determining at what point the former crosses over into the latter is essential. Characterizing those who are making that determination as either legalists or near-torturers isn't helpful.

What do I think about Abu Ghraib?

I disagreed with Mark's display of photos of Abu Ghraib as a debating tactic and the assertion that Abu Ghraib is what the Bush administration wants, indeed, "fighting tooth and nail" to achieve, and that "People were prosecuted and sent to jail for [Abu Ghraib] because it would have been political suicide not to do so."

I am not inclined to believe that the only reason our government was involved in bringing the abusers of Abu Ghraib to justice was for reasons of political expediency, and that they are incapable of remorse or moral repulsion. (The way Mark describes Bush, you'd think he would be happily applying electrodes to the captive's testacles). So I examined the topic for myself and came across some articles which challenged Mark's characterization (The 'Torture Narrative' Unravels", by Robert Pollack Wall Street Journal Oct. 2, 2005; Military Justice at Abu Ghraib Jurist Sept. 28, 2005).

I noted that the Defense Department Directive for Detainee Programs and the Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations were developed in part as a response to the abuses.

At the same time, I shared with my readers what I believe to be a persistent problem of civilian contractors who played an instrumental role in Abu Ghraib (as described in "The Unaccountables" American Prospect September 2006). Falling outside the military's jurisdiction, such individuals have eluded legal prosecution.

I continued to examine this aspect of the abuses at Abu Ghraib in my third roundup of the "torture debate", when I uncovered an exclusive interview Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski that supported the thesis that the chief problem at Abu Ghraib was not the CIA (about whom she praises as "the consumate professionals", and not prone to endangering the health or life of their charges) but rather civilian contractors, placed in positions of responsibility for interrogation and who operate without supervision, accountability or under the jurisdiction of the army. As a Salon.com article asserted, "The use of civilian contractors is key to understanding Abu Ghraib" ("Contract to torture", by Osha Gray. August 9, 2004).

As I stated then and will reiterate:

In short, while the DoD's response to the Abu Ghraib scandal and other incidents of detainee abuse is commendable -- according to the American Prospect, more than 250 officers and soldiers have been held accountable -- the process for taking legal action against contractors and those not directly under the jurisdiction of the military presents a grave impediment to justice, as evidence by the fact that "none of the civilian workers from Abu Ghraib have even been put on trial."

We can agree that this remains a problem to be rectified. Nevertheless, as regrettable as it is, it does not remotely warrant the suggestion that the Bush administration is not concerned about detainee abuse, or that the only reason disciplinary actions have been taken is "because it would have been political suicide not to do so.

* * *
What do I think about Fr. Harrison?

In subsequent roundups of "the torture debate", I linked to others who were engaged in similar discussions, howebeit in a less polemical manner and perhaps for that reason seemed to bear more fruit. Many of these conversations centered on the treatment of Fr. Brian Harrison's two-part examination, "[following] the classical procedure of examining in turn the witness of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium."

Fr. Harrison's survey of torture is troubling. He finds "Christian witness on [torture] . . . not only sparse, but is also, on the whole, disappointing. What we see is an instance of the familiar scenario in which a pendulum drawn too far in one direction swings rapidly to the opposite extreme when suddenly released."

In examining Gaudium Et Spes (and John Paul II's later use in quoting the passage in Veritatis Splendor #80), his key interest is in discerning exactly what is being referred to in the Council's condemnation. What is not attempted is a precise definition of torture; rather, in light of its pastoral nature, what it refers to are those kinds of torture which have actually been going on in the 20th century:

By the 1960s probably not a single country was left on earth whose penal code still openly and shamelessly provided for torture, with corresponding legislation regulating its application. At the same time, however, 20th-century Communist and Nazi regimes, along with many other petty dictatorships, especially in Latin America, Asia and Africa – not to mention any number of proscribed terrorist and criminal organizations – had been clandestinely refining, and ruthlessly applying, any number of new and horrendous torture techniques.

That, I suggest, is essentially the kind of torture contemplated and condemned by Vatican II, and then subsequently branded by John Paul II, as one example of "intrinsically evil" practices among others, when he quotes the Council word for word in Veritatis Splendor #80. I do not think we can conclude much more than this about the morality of pain infliction from these two magisterial texts alone. For that would be trying to make them provide answers to questions they did not set out to address.

The ensuing analysis from Harrison has been the subject of much discussion in the comboxes:
The Council itself, as we have pointed out, is contemplating, and roundly condemning, the currently existing phenomenon of torture, which happens to include this gravely aggravating factor of uncontrolled, clandestine arbitrariness. But also in the case of John Paul II’s encyclical, the Pope’s primary purpose in #80 is not to pass a considered judgment on torture as such – a question of ‘special’ moral theology. Rather, he is concerned to assert a much more general truth pertaining to ‘fundamental’ moral theology, namely, the falsity of recent ‘proportionalist’ theories, according to which practically any specific kind of human action could be justified under certain conditions. What the Pope wants to insist on here, in opposition to such theories, is simply that there do really exist classes of actions which are intrinsically morally evil, and which, therefore, can never be justified under any circumstances. And Gaudium et Spes #27 simply happens to furnish the Pope with a convenient, ready-made set of examples to help him illustrate his point. But even here, while the first examples given by Vatican II (murder, genocide, abortion, etc.) certainly serve the Pope’s purpose, not all of those further down the list do so – at least, not without further definition, amplification or clarification. . . .
Like "deportation" and "subhuman living conditions", Fr. Harrison asserts that "a hasty and strictly literal interpretation of what this passage says about torture would not accurately reflect the mind and intention of John Paul II. That is, VS #80 cannot legitimately be read as containing a formal judgment on the part of the Pope to the effect that the voluntary infliction of severe pain is, as such, 'intrinsically evil'."

Fr. Harrison points out three practices that do merit the description of "intrinsically unjust" according to Catholic doctrine:

  1. "Torture for extracting confessions of a crime of which one is accused"
  2. "Torture carried out on those not even accused formally of any crime or offence, simply in order 'to frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred'"
  3. "Torture, or indeed, mutilation or any other kind of physical or psychological violence against the person, carried out not by public authority in accordance with a norm of law, but by those acting arbitrarily and clandestinely, without any legal authority (even if they should happen to be heads of state, secret police, etc.)." According to Fr. Harrison, the majority of those acts of torture presently occuring in the world fall into this category.
However, he goes on to consider a fourth scenario: the infliction of pain in the effort to obtain information for the saving of lives (the possible rationale for torture not mentioned in the Catechism).
. . . there remains the question – nowadays a very practical and much-discussed one – of torture inflicted not for any of the above purposes, but for extracting life-saving information from, say, a captured terrorist known to be participating in an attack that may take thousands of lives (the now-famous ‘ticking bomb’ scenario). As we have noted above, this possible use of torture is not mentioned in the Catechism. If, as I have argued, the infliction of severe pain is not intrinsically evil, its use in that type of scenario would not seem to be excluded by the arguments and authorities we have considered so far. (John Paul II’s statement about the "intrinsic evil" of a list of ugly things including torture in VS #80 does not seem to me decisive, even at the level of authentic, non-infallible, magisterium . . . My understanding would be that, given the present status question is, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians.

Jimmy Akin & Fr. Harrison

While Harrison's study is more substantial, it is worth noting that in his two musings on the subject, one of Mark's fellow Catholic apologists, Jimmy Akin, registers opinions that are similiar, to Fr. Harrison's own:

From Doubts About Torture (October 26, 2006):

There have been a number of statements in Magisterial and semi-Magisterial documents condemning torture, but these do not offer technical definitions of what torture is, and having a good definition is a precondition for formulating a solid response to finely posed moral questions on the topic. . . .

At this point we don't have a good definition for torture--one that will allow it to be distinguished from other uses of the infliction of pain (mental or physical) to ensure compliance with various goals--and so at present moral theologians have the liberty to hash out the question until the issue matures to the point that, should it be warranted, an official response would make sense.

From What About Torture? (June 28, 2004):
The Catechism's discussion of torture (CCC 2298) focuses significantly on the motive that is being pursued in different acts of torture. If it means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture--just as some acts commonly described as stealing are not actually the sin of stealing, such as taking food to feed one's family during a time of starvation when the person who initially had the food has plenty. The same might turn out to be true of torture (i.e., not everything that looks like torture would be the sin of torture).

For example, the Catechism's list of motives for torture does not mention the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives. It thus might turn out that it is not torture to twist a terrorist's arm behind him and demand that he tell you where he planted a bomb so that it can be defused and innocents can be saved. Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.

I would be disinclined to go the route of saying that torture is not always wrong. I think that the Church is pretty clearly indicating in its recent documents that it wants the word "torture" used in such a way that torture is always wrong. However, I don't think that the Magisterium has yet thoroughly worked out all the kinds of "hard case" situations one can imagine and whether they count as torture.

If I am not mistaken, Dave Armstrong comes to similar conclusions in his deliberation of the subject, when he claims: "Certain clearly specified, morally acceptable forms of coercion in limited amounts for extremely important strategic and preventive purposes is no worse than warfare itself, which the Church has never condemned in toto."

For Fr. Harrison, Jimmy Akin, and Dave Armstrong, there are actions which count as torture and which are understood to be intrinsically evil. Nevertheless, all three also acknowledge desperate circumstances where the "deliberate infliction of intense pain" would be permitted -- such circumstances involving the need to obtain information (or what some refer to as "actionable intelligence") and which involve the welfare of innocent lives.

Likewise, they appear to be of the opinion that the Magisterial texts and the Catechism are not particularly helpful either in providing a definition of torture or the criteria to evaluate these "hard case" situations. As Jimmy Akin puts it:

If Rush Limbaugh were commenting on the situation, he might--in his own characteristic idiom--refer to such brief condemnations as acts of "drive-by Magisterium" that condemn torture in a brief manner that does not pause to explain in technical detail what torture is or allow finely-tuned moral questions to be answered about it.
In any event, it seems to me that Jimmy Akin and Dave Armstrong would both consider a valid use of coercion in such situations as something other than torture.

I imagine Fr. Harrison would do so as well, although his interchangeable use of the term "torture" and the "deliberate infliction of intense pain" presents an obstacle and source of confusion. For example, his conclusion that "the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion" -- while similar in substance to Akin and Armstrong, will nonetheless rankle the ears of certain critics.

I confess at this point that I am unable to distinguish between the positions of Harrison, Akin and Armstrong and those of Victor Morton or "Torquemada" of the cheekily titled Coalition for Fog -- neither of whom could be characterized as gung-ho "torture-apologists". If Mark registers his offense at the fact that they've called him names, it sounds like a case of "tit for tat." I don't approve of it, but I understand how those who are on the receiving end of a daily stream of vitriol are tempted to respond in kind.

Here I agree with David Armstrong's assessment of "the torture debate":

I've come to the conclusion that the debate on this comes down to mostly semantics and personal hostilities. I saw that early on when I realized that folks (including myself at first) were sloppy in differentiating the terms "torture" and "coercion" in various contexts, thus leading to further confusion (within the framework of cynicism and suspicion on both sides).

Thus, when Mark sees someone like Jimmy Akin (and to a lesser extent, myself) - fellow apologists whom he knows - rendering an opinion unidentical with his own, he is capable of granting that they do it in good faith, whereas if someone he doesn't know or if someone he is personally hostile to (the dreaded "coalition for fog") renders an opinion unidentical with his own, then it is open season for mocking, caricature, and the most cynical interpretation imaginable.

For the record, I'm inclined to agree with Fr. Harrison, Jimmy Akin and Dave Armstrong. Perhaps this makes me an intellectual lightweight, in simply rounding up and voicing my sympathies with those I find persuasive, rather than voicing my own opinions. Then again, I readily concede that these are people who've studied this subject far more thoroughly and have more to offer -- especially Fr. Harrison, who has done us all a favor in researching and compiling what Catholic tradition has to offer in those two very informative pieces.

I've been a Catholic for only a decade and spent most of my years prior to that either Protestant or agnostic. I am not nearly as well-read as you suspect in matters Catholic -- for which reason I decline to blog on certain issues others feel comfortable expounding upon. (When I read Pontifications, for instance, I'm inclined to hang up my keyboard in shame and admit what a hack I truly am.

Part of my motivation for doing these roundups is selfish: when I study a topic, I like to cull together the best articles and commentary I can find and work my way through it -- it's for my own benefit as much as my readers. So if I don't assert an opinion outright it may very well be because I'm still in the process of thinking things through -- reading articles, weighing arguments, assessing positions, in what spare time I have.

Is this "Cafeteria Catholicism of the Right" (Zippy), or "a fair and balanced act (Mark Shea)? You decide. To those who I've disappointed, perhaps someday I'll rise to your expectations.

P.S. I owe Tom McKenna a response. However, I'd like to read some of the articles I've compiled before responding to the assertion that JPII instituted not a development but a break from Catholic tradition on capital punishment. This will obviously take more time than I have available tonight, so perhaps later this week.

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Thursday, October 26, 2006

The Torture Debate - Pt. IV (Roundup)

I am reluctant to post again on this topic but at the request of a reader, for the sake of documentation and aiding the combox discussion, here is a roundup of recent responses on the topic over the course of the past week:

Fr. Brian Harrison

On October 19, Fr. Brian Harrison informed Tom McKenna (Seeking Justice) that the second part of his article has been published in Living Tradition:

Since your comment mentions and links my last year's letter to "Crisis" commenting on Mark Shea's article on torture, you and your readers (and perhaps even Mr. Shea) may be interested to read my much more extensive two-part article on the morality of torture which has since been published in Living Tradition. Mr. Shea's Crisis article was a big factor in prompting me to research this difficult and unpleasant subject much more thoroughly. Part I of my article deals with the teaching of Sacred Scripture regarding the ethics of torture, while Part II deals with the witness of Tradition and Magisterium. My bottom line is that you are right and Mr. Shea is wrong. As I see it, the authentic (and much less the infallible) magisterium, correctly understood, does NOT clearly condemn as intrinsically evil the direct (intentional) infliction of severe bodily pain. Mr. Shea's position seems to me a good example of what has been described as "magisterial fundamentalism" (interpreting magisterial statements in a superficial, literalist way without taking account of their literary and historical context, and the previous history of Scripture and Traditon on the subject). The links to my two-part article are:

Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Moral Theology: Part I - The Witness of Sacred Scripture

Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Moral Theology: Part II. The Witness of Tradition and Magisterium

Sincerely, Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., S.T.D. Associate Professor of Theology, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Parallel discussions to Harrison's debate:

  1. I Shawn McElhinney has written a substantial three-part post on the subject in On Torture and General Norms of Theological Interpretation Contra Certain "Apologist" Fundamentalist Hermeneutics; Pt. II; Pt. III) Rerum Novarum. Oct. 13, 2006.
    -- Response: Who Speaks for the Church?; More Thoughts on the History of Torture - Scott Carson (The Examined Life).
    -- On Torture and General Norms Revisited: Reply to Scott Carson, by I. Shawn McElhinney. Rerum Novarum Oct. 25, 2006.

  2. Michael Liccione (Sacramentum Vitae): Why her condemning torture doesn't discredit the Catholic Church Oct. 15, 2006; The branch theorists join the discontinuants Oct. 21, 2006.
    -- Response: More on Torture and the Problems With Trying To Discount the Historical Record Explicitly or Otherwise, by I. Shawn McElhinney. Rerum Novarum Nov. 1, 2006.
    -- Torturing Heretics Again, by Michael Liccione. Sacramentum Vitae Nov. 4, 2006.
    -- On Torture, the Limitations of Dignitatis Humanae, Logic, Etc.:, by I. Shawn McElhinney. Rerum Novarum Nov. 14, 2006.

Two fellow Catholic apologists have weighed in on this as well:

  • On October 24, 2006, Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong weighed in on the matter with The Controversial "Torture" Issue as Related to Catholic Development of Doctrine on the Treatment of Heretics, Cor ad cor loquitur Oct 24, 2006. Dave responded to Scott Carson and offered a supportive appraisal of Fr. Harrison.

  • Doubts About Torture, by Jimmy Akin. October 26, 2006. Jimmy admits he has not been keeping up with the debate, but "[having] briefly chatted with Mark about the matter, my impression is that his position is within the permitted range of Catholic moral thought on this, though his is not the only position within the permitted range of Catholic moral thought." He goes on to offer his thoughts on the possibility of a Responsum ad Dubium from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on this issue (not likely - "Unlike Catholic Answers, the Holy See is not in the business of running a Q & A service"):
    . . . There have been a number of statements in Magisterial and semi-Magisterial documents condemning torture, but these do not offer technical definitions of what torture is, and having a good definition is a precondition for formulating a solid response to finely posed moral questions on the topic.

    If Rush Limbaugh were commenting on the situation, he might--in his own characteristic idiom--refer to such brief condemnations as acts of "drive-by Magisterium" that condemn torture in a brief manner that does not pause to explain in technical detail what torture is or allow finely-tuned moral questions to be answered about it.

    While one would find such a characterization by Rush to display "a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable," such Magisterial acts express a deep moral intuition that torture is wrong, but they have not thus far meditated on this intuition to the point that technical questions can be answered about it. . . .

    The truth is that at this point we don't have a good definition for torture--one that will allow it to be distinguished from other uses of the infliction of pain (mental or physical) to ensure compliance with various goals--and so at present moral theologians have the liberty to hash out the question until the issue matures to the point that, should it be warranted, an official response would make sense.

    Readers are referred as well to a 2004 discussion on Akin's blog on this subject - What about Torture? June 28, 2004:
    The Catechism's discussion of torture (CCC 2298) focuses significantly on the motive that is being pursued in different acts of torture. If it means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture--just as some acts commonly described as stealing are not actually the sin of stealing, such as taking food to feed one's family during a time of starvation when the person who initially had the food has plenty. The same might turn out to be true of torture ( i.e., not everything that looks like torture would be the sin of torture).

    For example, the Catechism's list of motives for torture does not mention the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives. It thus might turn out that it is not torture to twist a terrorist's arm behind him and demand that he tell you where he planted a bomb so that it can be defused and innocents can be saved. Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.

    I would be disinclined to go the route of saying that torture is not always wrong. I think that the Church is pretty clearly indicating in its recent documents that it wants the word "torture" used in such a way that torture is always wrong. However, I don't think that the Magisterium has yet thoroughly worked out all the kinds of "hard case" situations one can imagine and whether they count as torture.

Finally getting back to the torture discussion - Mark Shea responds to Shawn McElhinnney, Dave Armstrong and the "Coalition for Fog" in a roundabout manner. As before, Victor Morton and company are imbued with the most dubious of motives, of being "driven by an agenda to try to liquidate John Paul's teaching," and "just like Catholics for a Free Choice, laboring to persuade Catholics to ignore that teaching [on torture] using much the same sort of rhetorical trickery."

Mark goes on to portrays his dispute with the 'Coalition' thus:

Armstrong, it is worth noting again, does not seem to me to be engaged in this project of simply trying to ignore John Paul. I think he misunderstands me to some degree, given that he seems to be under the impression I think the Magisterial teaching is infallibly defined, and given that he seems to be under the impression that the argument is about what acts constitute torture. That's not what the discusssion, at least with Coalition types, is about. The discussion is not about defining torture (when we are talking about Veritatis Splendor). It is an argument rather between those who say "Assuming we all agree that X is torture, X is *always* wrong by its nature" and those who say, "Assuming X is torture, X is sometimes (such as when the Bush Administration wants to do it) OK." The Church's teaching is that torture is *always* wrong. Always. Without exception or excuse.

No. VS is not an infallible definition. It is, however, an authoritative teaching. That it is a recent development is of absolutely no consequence to our obligation to obey it. That it presents difficulties to Fr. Harrison is of absolutely no consequence in our obligation to obey it. That other issues, like slavery, present difficulties to Cardinal Dulles, is of absolutely no consequence to our obligation to obey it. But this, in the end, is all the Coalition has going for it as it labors to persuade, if not other Catholics, at least each other that those who advocate obedience to the Magisterium are idiots who have failed to split the difference between past practice and present teaching.

Dave Armstrong took Mark to task in his combox, requesting evidence to back up his portrayal of his critics as such. Like Dave, I think Mark's portrayal bears little relation to the actual participants involved. There is simply no question as to what Fr. Harrison himself thinks of torture and its moral worth in his theological analysis of the subject. I would add that, to express sympathy for (and to take seriously) Fr. Harrison's comprehensive analysis of this issue and criticism of Shea's approach does not necessarily render one a practioner of "rhetorical trickery," out to "liquidate John Paul II's teaching," or to argue that "assuming X is torture, X is sometimes (such as when the Bush Administration wants to do it) OK." Mark, wholly convinced this is the case, is invited to point out specifically where the 'Coalition for Fog' fits this description. Personally I think his post vindicates Carson's criticism of the problems inherent in his approach ("Just Say It LOUDER", (The Examined Life). Oct. 17, 2006).

I look forward to the continued exchange btw/ Scott Carson, Shawn McElhinney & David Armstrong -- and perhaps Michael Liccione's interaction with them as well. It is to their credit that they are engaging this issue and even at times expressing very real disagreements in the manner that they have.

And I'll echo Dave Armstrong's suggestion to his own readers: read Cardinal Dulles, read Fr. Harrison -- because Fr. Harrison touches on practically all the arguments put forth by the "Coalition," and can only serve to inform this discussion.

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Sunday, October 15, 2006

"The Torture Debate" - Part III

This is a third post in a series, the first part being On Torture, "Aggressive Interrogation" and The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (10/02/06); the second The Torture Debate, Part II (10/08/06) on Against The Grain.

Readers will forgive me for dwelling once again on this disturbing topic, but I'd like to address to Mark Shea's response to my last post (A response (probably inadequate) to the Big Ol' Torture Roundup Post at Against the Grain Catholic and Enjoying It Oct. 10, 2006).

On Michael Ledeen

Mark revisits his Crisis magazine piece against Michael Ledeen and Linda Chavez (Toying with Evil Crisis March 2005) as grounds for adopting his particular approach

I got involved in this whole fracas when it became clear to me that some on the Right (namely Michael Ledeen and Linda Chavez, who inspired my "Toying With Evil" piece were advocating "entering into evil" and "doing things we know to be morally wrong" (Ledeen's words) and, more concretely, suggesting that we concretize these evil counsels by a) shooting unarmed wounded combatants and b) torturing people.
While I do not endorse Michael Ledeen's Machivellian reasoning, I will suggest that when Shea proclaims that "Michael Ledeen Reliably Suggests that our Troops Should Murder Surrendering Enemy Combatants", a closer look at Ledeen's words is probably warranted. This was demonstrated by the Coalition for Fog's "Torquemada" in an examination of the article in question. The point was likewise made by Christopher Rake* in January 2005, on Amy Welborn's Open Book, when he challenged Mark to square his characterization of the Michael-Ledeen-who-wants-to-shoot-unarmed-prisoners-in-cold-blood with Michael Ledeen on the matter of "abuses" of prisoners National Review March 21, 2004):
. . . Maybe the temperature of the rhetoric has cooled enough for us to address the most important aspect of the debacle: Torture and abuse are not only wrong and disgusting. They are stupid and counterproductive. A person under torture will provide whatever statements he believes will end the pain. Therefore, the "information" he provides is fundamentally unreliable. He is not responding to questions; 99 percent of the time, he's just trying to figure out what he has to say in order to end his suffering. All those who approved these methods should be fired, above all because they are incompetent to collect intelligence.

Torture, and the belief in its efficacy, are the way our enemies think. And remember that our enemies, the tyrants of the 20th century, and the jihadis we are fighting now, are the representatives of failed cultures. Our greatness derives from the superiority of our culture, and we should, as the sports metaphor goes, stick with what got us here.

The exchange between Shea and Rake took place on Amy Welborn's Open Book, with Rake contending that "I think you are cherry-picking to make [Ledeen] look as bad as humanly possible." Shea gave no inclination then of moderating his evaluation of Ledeen in light of his comments on torture, and hasn't since. However, in his response to me, he cites practical arguments from Richard W. Comerford that closely mirror Ledeen's own objections.

Mark then proceeds to offer an apology of sorts, but in the same breath excuses himself by insisting that

"I really do feel as strongly about this as I would if a group of people came on my blog (some of them no doubt well meaning) and pleaded with me to find every loophole, excuse, justification, and nuance in favor of partial birth abortion."
So much for the reasoned protests of Rich Leonardi, Victor Morton, Daniel Darling, and other erstwhile inhabitants of Shea's combox.
* From what I understand, Christopher Fotos was blogging under the pseudonym "Christopher Rake" at that period in time.

On the Church's Position on Torture Through the Ages

On Mark's challenge to whom he has on more than one occasion referred to as "some priest named Fr. Brian Harrison," I cede to Victor Morton, who has already made a sufficient rebuttal.

Likewise, in On Torture and General Norms of Theological Interpretation Contra Certain "Apologist" Fundamentalist Hermeneutics (Rerum Novarum Oct. 13, 2006 - Pt. II; Pt. III), I. Shawn McElhinney offers a substantial reflection on this matter. Stickler that he is for a coherent, rational argument (imagine that!), Shawn begins by emphasizing the need for a definition of terms:

. . . on the subject of torture we are asking those who have seized on this as a major agenda item of theirs to give the rest of us the most basic of courtesies and explain themselves. Define for us what in a workable sense constitutes "torture" and what does not. Notice we are not asking for an abstract manualist definition of the term but one which can be applied to real life situations with reasonable assurance that it provides a point of reference on the subject in question.
With that in mind, Shawn then undertakes an examination of Mark's position given his starting point with Gaudium et Spes ("whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself"). He demonstrates that those like Fr. Harrison, Victor Morton and company, who have questioned papal pronouncements and conciliar documents on this issue, are engaged in something more than what Shea casually dismisses as "looking for excuses, loopholes, apparent contradictions" or "attempting a direct assault on the Magisterial teaching of the Church."

This week, a reader by the name of Jeff (sorry, I don't know his last name) challenges Shea's approach with an appeal to Cardinal Avery Dulles, who has raised similar questions about the Church's prohibition of slavery (Development or Reversal? First Things 156 October 2005). (A partial CAEI combox discussion between Kevin Miller and Josiah of Cardinal Dulles' on slavery can be found here and here).

Commenting on my own blog, Jeff sums up the nature of the dispute:

I think one KEY component to understanding this discussion and the motivation of people like Mark is the question of levels of authority in Church teaching; how we give our assent to ALL Church teaching on a subject, old AND new; how we read Church documents "honestly" when they seem to conflict. . . .

There are those who think that the latest passage always trumps in every possible way: the Ultramontanists, if you will, for lack of any better term leaping to mind. Then there are those, who see an apparent contradiction between the latest thing from Rome and past teaching, i.e, the issue of "novelties", as Harrison calls them, and who simply discard or reject the latest teaching: the Traditionalists.

But there are also those who think that a harmonization is necessary and that involves substance, not just rhetoric. I.e, if Vatican Two's teaching on religious freedom seems to contradict earlier teaching, a harmonious understanding of its substance may be found in language which shifts the proper understanding back a bit toward earlier formulations, while preserving the essence of the new concerns.

This effort to "Harmonize" Church teaching, which Harrison represents fairly well, is not what Mark and others would have it be: a dishonest attempt to dissent from present teaching. But as long as he thinks it is, discussion on some of the foundational questions about this debate will remain difficult or impossible. . . .

I don't know how to sum all this up except to plead for this issue to be raised frankly and discussed charitably on blogs and in comments. And for there to be real charity on both sides in the discussion...however misled or wrong one of another party may be, the shared concern of most of us is to discover and hew to genuine Catholic teaching. That may result in distortions or mistakes along the way, but the way must be walked. Better if we can do it to some extent together. And certainly the discussion on torture will remain mired in invective and rhetoric unless it is put on the table.

I think that both Fr. Harrison, Victor Morton and I. Shawn McElhinney have demonstrated how one can approach this debate in a charitable manner. If they wish for a suitable response (one that rises above the imputation of dubious motives), they may find it in Michael Liccione (Sacramentum Vitae), who in two recent posts -- Torture and the Church (October 13, 2006) and "Why her condemning torture doesn't discredit the Catholic Church" (October 15, 2006) -- responds to an Anglican critic, on the proposition that

"If a Church or communion of Churches authorises, condones and engages in an activity with virtual unanimity through its official organs of authority over an extended period of time, this constitutes a definitive teaching affirming the moral goodness of that activity."
I for one am interested in the potential exchange.

Mark Shea's Characterization of the Bush Administration

I would like to address, once more, Shea's (mis)use of Abu Ghraib. But first, touching on his cynical approach to President Bush, she can't help but assume the worst:

This brings us back to the teaching of the Church, which has not only a negative but a positive formulation. The negative formulation is "Torture is intrinsically immoral." Endless electrons have been spent on the question, "What, exactly, is torture?" Our own President finds himself baffled by what on earth "outrages on human dignity" could possibly mean. It's all so murky and confusing!
Dr. Scott Carson (The Examined Life), has a different take:
So, while it may be salutary for a Christian to keep the prohibition from violence in mind while thinking about torture, as a philosophical starting point it is not going to be of much help. Nor may we begin to search for necessary and sufficient conditions by presupposing that what we are looking for are levels of violence that are "too great" or "morally unacceptable" since that again begs the question. George Bush made this same point in his notoriously colloquial way the other day, drawing derision from the likes of Jon Stewart and Mark Shea, but it is worth noting that the expression used in the Geneva Conventions--"outrages on human dignity"--is not a univocal expression. The Geneva Conventions do not bother to stipulate what an "outrage" is nor what "human dignity" is. As Christians, we believe we have some inkling as to what we mean by the latter, but we have no grounds for assuming that what we mean by "human dignity" is what everyone else means by it, or even that it is what the authors of the Geneva Convention meant by it. Mark Shea does a disservice to those who point this out in good faith by portraying them as making an obvious and outrageously stupid error. The implication is that George Bush is either a cynical sophist or an ignorant moron (or perhaps both); although he may be, his asking what an "outrage against human dignity" means is not evidence for the claim--it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask when one is trying to decide whether what one is doing is morally justifiable or not and folks are sticking Geneva Conventions under your nose in answer to your question. In short, pointing to the Geneva Conventions is not merely vague, it also begs the question, since the very point at issue is whether these actions are morally licit.
Defending his posting of images from Abu Ghraib, Mark asserts that
. . . the [Bush] Administration was all about more Abu Ghraib's and would have gotten their wish if they had succeeded in loosening the regulations on interrogation. However, the Army, to their great credit, defied Cheney's attempt to do this and instead made clear that prisoner abuse was not in keeping with the traditions of our honorable troops.
And, later on in the post:
It does not follow that what the experts say is always going to conform to Catholic teaching (how should I know?). But given that the Bush Administration tried hard recently to alter long-standing regulations for the Army to make the definition of prisoner abuse fuzzier and the Army responded by make it clearer what could not be done to prisoners, I'm inclined to trust the experts on the ground interrogating people rather than the meddling bureaucrats with a proven record of approval of torture and prisoner abuse.
The gist of Mark's argument and the impression he gives is that the Bush Administration is fighting "tooth and nail" to give the CIA the same freedom to commit the same atrocities that occurred at Abu Ghraib. But it seems to me that Abu Ghraib is rather a demonstration of the kind of abuse that can occur "on the ground" in an uncontrolled, unsupervised environment -- as when the specific responsibilities of interrogation and obtaining "actionable intelligence" are delegated to individuals lacking professional training in that area.

Here, then, is an exclusive interview Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski (on truthout.org -- by no means "Bush-friendly", so please, no accusations of stumping for the Administration) -- which supports this reading of events. Karpinski was in charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in the fall of 2003, when the abuses occurred. She was reprimanded and demoted to Colonel for her failure to properly supervise the prison guards, and is the highest ranking officer to be sanctioned for the mistreatment of prisoners.

When questioned on the specific involvement of the CIA in the detainee abuses, I found her response suprising:

MC: Do you think the CIA is involved? Did you have any contact with the CIA at all, in terms of their involvement with the interrogations?

JK: Marjorie, I have to tell you that from July onward, even up until December, I wouldn't say regularly, but it was often, that I encountered somebody from the Task Force, from the CIA, from Special Operations, and by and large, they were professionals. They were absolutely the consummate professionals.

Now I don't know if they ran separate facilities, and I don't know what techniques they use. I do know that when they determined that somebody they were holding in one of their facilities no longer had any value and they wanted to turn them over to us, at Abu Ghraib, most likely, they turned them over with full medical records. They turned them over with a whole file of interviews and interrogations, and they turned them over in relatively good health, particularly given the situation. So I think that - this is only my conclusion - but I think that techniques in the right and responsible hands are used appropriately. I mean, I never saw anybody under the control of the Task Force or under the control of the CIA who came in bruised, bloody, beaten, and, you know, stitched together. Occasionally we did see the aftermath of a gunshot wound, but these were higher-value detainees, if there was cross-fire or if there was a bullet, but they treated those kind of wounds. That would be my impression.

However, these same techniques or suggestions of aggressive techniques that were designed, in my opinion - again, I don't know this first-hand - but all of these reports now would indicate that these techniques were designed and tested and implemented down at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan. And when you take those same techniques and put them in the hands of irresponsible and non-accountable people, like these civilian contractors were, you are combining lethal ingredients. And what happens? You get civilian contractors who have a playground, and they get out of control. And unfortunately, at Abu Ghraib they suck the military into that same playground. There's no doubt in my mind that they ordered these things to be done.

MC: Who is "they?"

JK: They being the civilian contractors - Titan, CACI. The majority of those contractors were either in Guantánamo Bay or Afghanistan prior to being sent to Abu Ghraib. There were a lot of translators who were working for Titan. Some of them were locally hired, some of them were brought in from the United States. And they were given an opportunity to upgrade their positions to be interrogators - without any kind of formal training whatsoever. So now you have a deadly mix. You have people who have been exposed and who have used these techniques first-hand in other locations. They know that there is no supervision or control. They have been directed, using whatever words, to get Saddam, get the information and get these prisoners to start talking, use more aggressive techniques. So you have allowed people who have no responsibility whatsoever to use techniques that were originally, perhaps originally designed and used by very experienced hands. And it got out of control. It clearly got out of control.

In my last post, I raised the issue of "independent contractors" (The Unaccountables American Prospect September 2006 ) who were placed in positions of responsibility for interrogation and who operate without accountability or under the jurisdiction of the army, such that while instances of abuse by the Army are routinely investigated, "instances of contractor abuse are vastly underreported by victims -- and underinvestigated by the military."

According to a Salon.com article, "The use of civilian contractors is key to understanding Abu Ghraib" ("Contract to torture", by Osha Gray. August 9, 2004):

As the full Taguba report makes clear, private contractors held many sensitive positions at the prison. The wealth of classified documents suggests that once the administration decided to privatize military intelligence operations -- giving inexperienced contract workers nearly unlimited power over detainees -- with only a pretense of military oversight, the door to prisoner abuse was thrown open.

Among the individuals not qualified for sensitive interrogation positions at Abu Ghraib were many hired by CACI International, a Virginia company that provided intelligence services to the U.S. military, and Titan Corp., a San Diego company that supplied translators. According to an investigation released July 21 by the Army's inspector general, a third of contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib "had not received formal training in military interrogation techniques, policy, and doctrine."

The problem might not have been so serious if there had been only two or three contract workers on interrogation teams. But according to the Taguba report and an inside source, all 20 of the interpreters at Abu Ghraib worked for Titan. The classified documents contain an organizational chart that indicates that on Jan. 23, 2004, nearly half of all interrogators and analysts employed at Abu Ghraib were CACI employees.

On the problems presented by the use of non-military personnel for interrogation, see also the Amnesty International report, Outsourcing Warfare (Summer 2004).

Which, all in all leads me to suspect that the causes of Abu Ghraib are a little more complex than Mark lets on.

Based on the articles cited, one could argue that the presence of "independent contractors" delegated to oversee interrogations at Abu Ghraib, without adequate training and under minimal supervision, was a prevalent and unaddressed flaw in the Bush Administration's handling of the war on Iraq and the WoT.

One could discuss whether the later interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Muhammad meet the criteria for torture and whether they should be rightly rejected. (Q: Is it necessary for us to conclude that they are intrinsically evil, or that they must constitute torture before deeming them objectionable? -- Ed Graham argues, "whether it is 'torture,' . . . is not a simple, clear cut legal question. What seems clear to me about waterboarding is that it constitutes inhumane treatment of prisoners and is immoral under, e.g., Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2313.").

However, I maintain that to slap some shocking photos of detainee abuse from Abu Ghraib on a blog and suggest that "Dick Cheney wanted this," or that the Bush administration "wanted more Abu Ghraibs" -- does not accurately convey what happened at Abu Ghraib, but wrongfully conflates the CIA's interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Kalid Shaikh Mohammad with the acts of pure sadistic cruelty at Abu Ghraib.

Here I am sympathetic to Sydney Carton's protest, that

"Far too many people are just too eager to mock people charged with serious responsibilties and hence endure enormous temptations. Every time I hear the word "torture apologist," "Bushie," etc, I think that it makes no sense to denounce an evil while engaged in the evil of character assassination. How many insults can support a moral argument? How many attacks on the character of a person can build a strong foundation?"
In his response to Krauthammer (Symposium: The Truth about Torture), Fr. Neuhaus likewise appears to argue for a similar distinction (or against such a conflation) when he asserts:
We are not talking here about the reckless indulgence of cruelty and sadism exhibited in, for instance, the much-publicized Abu Ghraib scandal. We are speaking, rather, of extraordinary circumstances in which senior officials, acting under perceived necessity, decide there is no moral alternative to making an exception to the rules, and accept responsibility for their decision. Please note that, in saying this, one does not condone the decision. It is simply a recognition that in the real world such decisions will be made.
Related readings:
* * *

Responding to the second roundup, a reader questioned my "impartiality" on this debate and wondered:

While we have the luxury of taking a careful, leisurely -- while still being academic -- approach to this issue, there are people suffering. Is enough being done or are we just giving lipservice?
I share that concern. As citizens, our capacity for doing something on this very issue is unfortunately limited -- we can draw attention to abuses when and where they occur, and support organizations that do the same. We can also exercise our vote, with the hope that those legislators we elect will make the right decision.

And as long as we're discussing these issues in the first place, we can do our best to have an informed discussion -- meaning an accurate presentation of each others' positions, supplemented by research, and a measure of civility and charity which I think are integral to this process. These posts are an attempt to provide a vehicle for such a discussion. Like other roundups, I do this for my own benefit. Like you, I'm in the process of thinking through (and educating myself on) this issue.

In the interest of sparing you the torture of another lengthy post, consider this my last on this particular subject, at least for a good long while. I will continue updating the first roundup ("On Torture, "Aggressive Interrogation" and The Military Commissions Act of 2006") with any relevant material on the subject that I think would advance the discussion.

God bless and thanks to those who participated (and did their best to keep it civil).

  • "Maybe I'm Naive But . . ." - Christopher P. Atwood (Three Hierarchies) suspects a "bait and switch" on part of the outcry over the MCA:
    Call me naive, but it seemed to me that a bait and switch was going on -- aided by the posturing of the White House. Up until the actual bill, the issue was specific "torture-lite" techniques: is waterboarding acceptable or not? Prolonged sleep-deprivation? Cold cells? But once the bill was passed, the word habeas corpus became the big thing.
  • Interrogators Beware, by Stephen Rickard. The Washington Post October 17, 2006:
    On rare occasions, President Bush and his toughest critics agree on something. That will happen today when Bush signs the Military Commissions Act, while claiming "clear" authorization from Congress for "enhanced" CIA interrogations. Many critics claim the bill authorizes torture. Fortunately, both sides are wrong.

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