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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"
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Questions about President Obama’s executive orders on the incarceration and interrogation of detainees
The big news of this week: Obama's first executive orders were not the reversal of the Mexico City Policy (as every major media source and not a few bloggers had predicted, and for which Obama waited until Friday) but the reversal of notable Bush administration's policies on the incarceration and interrogation of detainees:
President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.However, while some cheerleaders for Obama are already hailing an end to the gestapo-inspired “enhanced interrogration [Sic] techniques”, a review of critical responses -- from the political "right" AND "left" -- suggests that the President's gesture is more symbolic and an exercise in moral posturing than anything else. It appears that serious questions remain about what is actually accomplished by President Obama's recent executive orders.
Update Thanks to Catholics and Enjoying It for the traffic to this post. See "A brief response to Mark Shea ... Labels: torture
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Torture in the News
 Practically buried in the news in the wake of the corruption scandal of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was the publication, on December 11, of a report by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- the culmination of an 18-month long investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody:
A major focus of the Committee’s investigation was the influence of Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training techniques on the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. SERE training is designed to teach our soldiers how to resist interrogation by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions and international law. During SERE training, U.S. troops --- in a controlled environment with great protections and caution --- are exposed to harsh techniques such as stress positions, forced nudity, use of fear, sleep deprivation, and until recently, the waterboard. The SERE techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody. The Committee’s investigation found, however, that senior officials in the U.S. government decided to use some of these harsh techniques against detainees based on deeply flawed interpretations of U.S. and international law.The Committee concluded that the authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials was both a direct cause of detainee abuse and conveyed the message that it was okay to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody. Chairman Levin said, “SERE training techniques were designed to give our troops a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist. The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.” Senator McCain said, “The Committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody. These policies are wrong and must never be repeated.” Further details:
The latest inquiry into detainee treatment by the Senate Armed Services Committee breaks little new ground – merely reiterating the findings of at least 12 previous independent investigations, which reported that certain isolated and limited incidents of detainee abuse occurred in the handling of detainees in U.S. custody. The implication, however, that this abuse was the direct, necessary, or foreseeable result of policy decisions made by senior administration officials is false and without merit. It is counter-productive and potentially dangerous to our men and women in uniform to insinuate that illegal treatment of detainees resulted from official U.S. government policies. [Read the rest]In Torturing the Evidence, the Editors of National Review responded to the Levin-McCain Report: Prisoner abuse should not be taken lightly. There have been nearly two dozen detainee deaths reported, five of which are believed to have occurred during interrogations. But these episodes are endemic to warfare, not peculiar to the Bush era or a result of the president’s policies. Abuse is not to be tolerated — and it isn’t: dozens of U.S. military personnel have been disciplined and a number tried in courts-martial. There is a world of difference between relatively rare wrongdoing at the hands of a miniscule number of soldiers and a government program of torture. And as Jacob Laskin notes, [The Levin-McCain report] brings no new evidence to light, while its conclusions about the complicity in “torture” of Bush administration higher-ups have been discredited by a multitude of previous investigations: [A] 2004 report on Abu Ghraib by Army Gen. Paul Kern found 44 incidents of abuse at the Iraqi prison, but absolved Rumsfeld and other administration officials from responsibility. An August 2004 investigation by former Secretary James Schlesinger concluded that Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials bore some indirect responsibility for the Abu Ghraib abuses, but also underscored that “there is no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military authorities.” In Guantanamo Bay, a 2005 Army Regulation report examining 24,000 interrogations conducted over a three-year period “found no evidence of torture or inhumane treatment” at Gitmo. One may reasonably take these investigations as proof that the Bush administration, whatever its mistakes, had no systematic policy to “torture” detainees.Some quick observations: Waterboarding The most controversial SERE techniques adopted for use in interrogations is waterboarding - immobilizing the subject and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, so as to bring on the simulation of drowning. Waterboarding is commonly accepted to be a form of physical torture. It was used by Japanese soldiers against American POWS during World War II; by French soldiers during the Algerian war, and was designated as illegal by U.S. generals during the Vietnam war. Guantanamo commanders requested permission to use a "wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation" in a memo to the Pentagon. Sec. Rumsfeld denied permission in his now (in)famous reply of Dec. 2, 2002, stating that "as a matter of policy, Category III techniques [ ] was not warranted at this time. Our Armed Forces are trained to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint." However, in February 2008, CIA Director Michael Hayden testified before Congress that the CIA had used waterboarding on three high-ranking members of Al Qaeda in 2002-2003 (Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri), following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This week, Vice President Dick Cheney reasserted his approval of waterboarding in an interview with ABC News, and later, in an interview with the Washington Times, admitted that he was privy to the discussions which authorized the procedure and "signed off on it" -- prompting Senator Levin to call for an investigation. The protest launched by some, "if that's the case, we have tortured members of our own armed forces (during SERE training)" is rather flimsy: does training our troops to endure waterboarding (with the expectation that they would be subjected to them by an enemy, and precisely that: an enemy not subject to the Geneva conventions) therefore legitimize our right to waterboard those we capture? -- I would say not.
"Aggressive Interrogation Techniques" The predominant focus of the report, however, is not so much the rare use of waterboarding as the entire range of SERE tactics -- “stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli” -- which were approved by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in 2002 for use in special interrogations. Do these "aggressive interrogation techniques" also amount to torture? -- This is something that the Levin-McCain report assumes, although it is a topic of much dispute, both in the general public as well as our Catholic online community (discussed below). For an explanation of the range techniques in question, see: What is Torture? A Primer on American interrogation. Abu Ghraib - abuse of the policy, or the policy itself? Another assumption is that what happened at Abu Ghraib was in fact not an abuse of policy but the policy of the United States itself. Catholic apologist Mark Shea, in characteristic hyperbole, asserts that "our troops, acting on the orders of the President of the United States, did what they were ordered to do". However, as stated previously, numerous investigations into the abuses of Abu Ghraib have concluded otherwise. The investigation conducted by 2004 Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations headed by James R. Schlesinger concurred with the findings of several previous investigations that Abu Ghraib was the consequence of "serious leadership problems"; that techniques circulating from Guantanamo and Afghanistan "effective under controlled conditions ... became far more problematic when they migrated and were not properly safeguarded"; likewise "the abberant behavior of the nightshift in Cell Block 1 at Abu Ghraib would have been avoided with proper training, leadership and oversight." Ultimately, it concluded that "No approved procedures called for or allowed the kinds of abuse that in fact occurred. There is no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military authorities." Consequently, one might conclude that Mark Shea is playing fast and loose with the facts when he posts a photo of a prisoner covered in excrement with the assertion that this was done "at the order of President Bush" or to characterize the legal opinions rendered by Bush's counsel as such "that the President has legitimate authority to order a child's testicles to be crushed if he sees fit". Remarks of this nature do nothing to advance the discussion. * * * In "Drawing a Line Against Torture" (First Things "On The Square" October 2004), Fr. Neuhaus remarked: Torture as defined in international agreements to which the U.S. is party—outrages against human dignity, humiliation, degradation, mutilation, the threat of death—is never morally permissible. Admittedly, a measure of coercion, both physical and mental, is inevitably involved in most interrogation. The very fact of being in custody and under threat of punishment is a form of coercion. The task is to draw as bright a line as possible between such coercion and torture, and to forbid the latter absolutely. The uncompromisable principle is that it is always wrong to do evil in order that good may result. This principle is taught in numerous foundational texts of our civilization and is magisterially elaborated in the 1993 encyclical of John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor. We cannot ask God's blessing upon a course of action that entails the deliberate doing of evil. When something like Abu Ghraib happens, the appropriate response of patriotic Americans is one of deep sorrow, clear condemnation, and a firm resolution that it not happen again.During October 2006 various members of the Catholic online community ("St. Blog's") engaged in a discussion, both on the theoretical level and that of practical policy, on these questions. Mark Shea has taken John Paul II's list of actions which were deemed "intrinsically evil" in Veritatis Splendour ("whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit") as officially settling the matter -- while other participants such as Catholic apologists Jimmy Akin, David Armstrong and Father Brian W. Harrison (in a contribution to Catholic Answers' The Church & Torture This Rock December 2006; as well as Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Moral Theology Living Tradition Sept. 2005), are of the opinion that the passage does not suffice as an absolute condemnation, and have labored to distinguish between what coercion and torture. It is, by all appearances, a debate that is far from over. Most recently, another Catholic writer, Ross Douthat, In Thinking About Torture (The Atlantic, Dec. 16, 2008), Ross Douthat, penned his "own inarticulate mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt about the Bush Administration's interrogation policy" and "the sheer muddiness that surrounds my own thinking (such as it is) on the issue": ... the waterboarding of al Qaeda's high command, despite the controversy it's generated, is not in fact the biggest moral problem posed by the Bush Administration's approach to torture and interrogation. The biggest problem is the sheer scope of the physical abuse that was endorsed from on high - the way it was routinized, extended to an ever-larger pool of detainees, and delegated ever-further down the chain of command. Here I'm more comfortable saying straightforwardly that this should never have been allowed - that it should be considered impermissible as well as immoral, and that it should involve disgrace for those responsible, the Cheneys and Rumsfelds as well as the people who actually implemented the techniques that the Vice President's office promoted and the Secretary of Defense signed off on.As Ross observes, the case made by some that the record of human rights violations which occurred under the watch of the Bush Administration -- such as the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the rendition of detainees to CIA "black sites" -- is somehow altogether different from what occurred in the past, crumbles in the light of historical examination. As he puts it: ... as far as the baseline of Bush Administration wrongdoing goes - the decision to take an ends-justify-the-means approach to the interrogation of terror suspects - I do think it needs to be placed in historical context, and treated as an example of the kind of consequentialism that's endemic to modern Presidencies (and to international affairs more generally), rather than as a distinct break with a more idealistic, human-rights-centric American past.  Douthat references New Yorker correspondent Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals , "the battle within the Bush Administration over a new anti-terrorism policy of harsh interrogations, indefinite detentions without due process, extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons and warrantless wiretappings." (See Benjamin Wittes' "One Side Only" (Policy Review Oct/Nov 2008). According to Witte, Mayer's book is strongest when it adheres to the facts of the matter:
She brings a whole lot of information to the table, whether on details of extraordinary renditions, debates within the CIA over how to handle those it snatched around the world, bureaucratic infighting throughout the administration over interrogation and detention policy, or the extreme anxiety officials felt about how best to conduct the fight against the enemy. She reports on new documents; she has clearly had significant access to key players. What’s more, the texture of her reporting gets down and dirty enough to make phrases like “coercive interrogation” all too real. No decent person can read her account of the CIA’s interrogation program without something approaching nausea.Unfortunately, says Witte, her efforts are marred by an attempt to fit the travails of the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11 into an all-too-simplistic moral narrative: perhaps her biggest mistake is the one that resides in that subtitle and her related Manichean sense of the Bush administration as a hard-fought internal war between good and evil, between torturers and decent conservatives, between those who believe in the rule of law and those who do not, between practitioners of the old tried and true methods of fighting terrorists and those who eagerly chose to dwell in what Mayer’s arch-villain, Vice President Dick Cheney, once called “the dark side.”As Witte demonstrates, this leads to questions of fairness in Mayer's casting of certain characters, and negligence to entertain evidence which would complicate her portrayal of Bush administration officials as the villains. This reminds me of DarwinCatholic's caution in a recent post to The American Catholic: The most rewarding approach to history is to understand as sympathetically as possible the motivations of all those on both sides of major historical conflicts. Picking a “good guy” and “bad guy” and engaging in constant denunciations of specific acts is generally not condusive to this. Certainly, that does not mean that one may not judge the morality of historical events. But it does mean taking a less judgemental approach to history as a whole.Simplistic narratives are generally the enemy of historical understanding. * * *
I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.Dissatisfied with what he referred to as the "Guantanamo Bay Model" -- "Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them" -- the former senior interrogator at Iraq embarked on a different strategy: I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.Over at Alternet, DemocracyNow's Amy Goodman interviews Alexander, going into greater detail of the strategy he employed in the interrogation which culminated in the disclosure of the whereabouts of Musab al-Zarqawi: if you look at the way we do criminal interrogations in the United States, you can certainly tell a criminal suspect what are the consequences for a crime that they've committed, or that you suspect they've committed. So that, I think, is a permissible and ethical way to conduct an interrogation. However, it's not the most effective. The most-effective techniques are those that rely on rapport-building and relationship-building and then adapt that into the culture of the person that you're interrogating.Alexander has also written a book entitled, How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.  .Labels: torture
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Torture and Religious Liberty
Torture and religious liberty, by Lawrence Swaim InFocus (Via Bill Cork):
Four former detainees at Guantanamo — Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith — are litigating in Rasul vs. Rumsfeld to hold government officials accountable for torture they endured while being held there. (All were found innocent of terrorist activity and released in 2004.) Represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the four British citizens first cited violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law, but these were thrown out by the district court because the alleged misconduct (beatings, painful shackling, interrogation at gunpoint, use of dogs, extreme temperatures and sleep deprivation) was seen as occurring during the "course of war." But allegations of deliberate attacks on religion were not so easily ignored and are currently being considered by an appeals court in Washington, D.C. Labels: torture
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 . . .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. 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. 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.
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).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. On Torture, "Aggressive Interrogation" and The Military Commissions Act of 2006 Against The Grain October 2, 2006.
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.
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.
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: 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: 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. 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: 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. Fr. Harrison points out three practices that do merit the description of "intrinsically unjust" according to Catholic doctrine:
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): 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. 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. 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: 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": 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.
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: Parallel discussions to Harrison's debate:
Two fellow Catholic apologists have weighed in on this as well:
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.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.
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.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. . . . 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?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.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).
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