Torture

Over at the Secular Outpost, I’ve directed readers to some recent posts by Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars about slavery and the Bible (here, here, here, and here). It’s interesting to me how many members of the religious right, while usually trying to take the moral high ground and arguing positions on the basis of absolute moral values, suddenly shift to more relativistic, situational, and utilitarian positions on subjects like slavery, torture, war, executive power, and deception by national leaders.

An October 2005 Pew poll shows that American Christians (and Catholics in particular) have remarkably strong support for the use of torture, while secular Americans more strongly oppose it. This is another piece of evidence against the common claim that morality requires religion, or that religious people are more moral than nonreligious people. More details at the Secular Outpost. UPDATE (March 25, 2006): Steve Hays at Triablogue has chimed in with some highly critical comments on my post, mostly based on incorrect inferences about what I was arguing. (I didn’t actually spell out an argument in any detail, so I’ll accept some of the blame for that–but it’s funny to see positions attributed to me that I don’t hold.) I’ve posted comments in response to him on his blog, and spelled out an actual argument in the comments at the Secular Outpost: 1. Torture is prima facie wrong; it is only justifiable, if ever, in rare circumstances. 2. Those who advocate widespread, common use of torture against suspected terrorists are less moral than those who oppose most or all use of torture against suspected terrorists. (I could also insert here some premises about the use of the word “suspected” here–I believe the intent of the use of the term is to make the point that we don’t know that these are terrorists and probably wouldn’t have sufficient grounds to convict them in a court of law–e.g., like many of those being held in Guantanamo Bay). 3. Those who describe themselves as secular are more likely to oppose torture than those who describe themselves as Christians. 4. Those self-descriptions are mostly accurate. 5. Therefore, with respect to the subject of torture of suspected terrorists, those who are secular tend to be more moral than those who are Christian. 6. This is a point of evidence against the thesis that those who are Christian are more moral than those who are secular. Steve’s main three points of criticism on my original post were these (he has more to say at his blog): i) Notice how he assumes, without benefit of argument, that “torture” is always wrong. That’s the nice part of being a secular rationalist. You don’t have to give reasons for your rationalism. […] ii) He also doesn’t bring any critical thinking skills to bear on whether we should frame the issue of interrogation in terms of torture. Surely there’s a continuum here, is there not? There are many degrees and kinds of coercion. In addition, if we capture a high-level terrorist, and he doesn’t want to talk, should we do absolutely nothing to extract actionable information from him? If that’s the position of secular humanism, then secular humanism is one of those useless ideologies like pacifism which is incapable of meeting the challenges of a real world situation. iii) Then there’s his position that belief in use of “torture” under any circumstances makes you a worse person than someone who rejects the use of “torture” under any circumstances.To which I responded in comments on the post: ...

Jane Mayer has written a moving article in The New Yorker about how Albert J. Mora, former general counsel of the U.S. Navy and David Brant, former head of the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, took a stand against torture and cruelty in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, but were mostly thwarted by “a small group of lawyers closely aligned with Vice President Cheney”–Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II, Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker, and John Yoo.

George Deutsch is a 24-year-old Texas A&M University graduate in journalism (class of 2003) who was appointed by the White House to the press office of NASA headquarters after his stint as an intern working in the “war room” of the Bush 2004 reelection campaign. He has gotten some well-deserved press lately for the fact that, despite having no science background, he apparently has had the authority to tell senior scientists at NASA such as Dr. James Hansen what they can and cannot say to the press. In October 2005, he told a NASA contractor working on an educational website about Einstein for middle-school students that he must add the word “theory” after every occurrence of the phrase “Big Bang,” because the Big Bang “is not proven fact; it is opinion. […] It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator. […] This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.” As others have noted, Deutsch not only doesn’t understand what the word “theory” means, his knowledge of theology seems pretty weak–the Big Bang is commonly used as an argument for the existence of God (e.g., William Lane Craig’s version of the kalam cosmological argument, which has as a premise that the universe has a finite past). World O’Crap has dug up some of Mr. Deutsch’s past work at the Texas A&M Battalion, which includes this comment on the Laci Peterson murder: Still, the defense’s main theory – that a Satanic cult killed Laci – is actually quite credible. Several impartial witnesses have reported seeing a van adorned with satanic symbols and a man with “666” tattooed on his arm in front of the Peterson home in late December. ...

John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody - including by crushing that child's testicles.John Yoo is one of the primary legal advisors to George W. Bush, responsible for legal reasoning to justify torture, warrantless wiretapping, and virtually anything else the president feels is necessary. Here's the exchange with Yoo, from a December 1, 2005 debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel: Cassel: If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him? Yoo: No treaty. Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo. Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.More description and a link to an audio clip here.

The Boston Globe reports that the “signing statement” issued by George W. Bush after signing the bill outlawing the torture of detainees contains caveats that indicate that the restrictions in the law can be bypassed in situations where he sees fit. Bush seems to be under the impression that executive powers granted to him as president allow him to violate any law he deems inconvenient. It’s high time for this corrupt, dishonest president to be impeached. ...

Blairwatch has published the text of memos from Craig Murray, UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which complain about the U.S. giving aid to the country after accepting sham improvements in human rights, as well as collecting intelligence information obtained via torture. Some excerpts: I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdraw a motion on Human Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling at the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. I was most unhappy to find that we are helping the US in what I can only call this cover-up. I am saddened when the US constantly quote fake improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan, such as the abolition of censorship and Internet freedom, which quite simply have not happened (I see these are quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for Uzbekistan, again I understand at American urging). […] We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror. […] I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain the Uzbek torture material. I understand that the principal argument deployed was that the intelligence material disguises the precise source, ie it does not ordinarily reveal the name of the individual who is tortured. Indeed this is true – the material is marked with a euphemism such as “From detainee debriefing.” The argument runs that if the individual is not named, we cannot prove that he was tortured. […] I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues would resort to it to justify torture. I have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of political or religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, and I have met with very few where torture, as defined in the UN convention, was not employed. When my then DHM raised the question with the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily acknowledged torture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not think there is any doubt as to the fact. ...

In the UK, the Law Lords ruled early this month that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in court, including evidence obtained by foreign governments (such as the United States) through the use of torture–and the burden of proof that the evidence was not obtained by torture falls upon the government. Lord Bingham stated, “The English common law has regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for over 500 years … I am startled, even a little dismayed, at the suggestion…that this deeply rooted tradition and an international obligation solemnly and explicitly undertaken can be overridden by a statute.” The panel of seven judges was unanimous in its ruling that the evidence of torture was inadmissible, but divided on the standard the government must overcome to demonstrate the evidence was not admitted by torture once a defendant produces a “plausible reason” to think that it was. Three of the judges (including Lord Bingham) argued for a standard that the government show “no real risk” of basis on torture, the other four that the government show it “on the balance of probabilities." In the United States, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have argued strongly against any restrictions on the use of torture by the United States, while at the same time claiming that the United States does not use torture. While Bush has recently and reluctantly agreed to support the McCain amendment on torture, that amendment states that “No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.” Ten classified pages have just been added to that manual, leading some to suggest that this has created a way around the McCain amendment. Fortunately, however, the McCain amendment goes on to say that “No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” It defines “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” as “the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984." But there seems little question that Bush and Cheney want to push the limits as far as they possibly can.