Over the past couple of weeks the torture debate has been coming to my mind. I have been rethinking my beliefs, intuitions, arguments, and feelings on the issue of the use of torture (enhanced interrogation techniques) in the defense of our nation and after much thought I have come to the conclusion that 1) enhanced interrogation techniques are in fact torture, 2) that their use to gain information to ensure our country’s safety is morally illicit and that 3) these techniques which are considered torture are evil.
Kyle and I used to go head-to-head on the matter of torture and whether the enhanced interrogated techniques (EIT’s) constituted torture. I insisted that EIT’s were not torture. I would argue very passionately in favor of the use of EIT’s because I thought the safety of the United States was the most important thing and that even if it was evil or immoral these techniques were being used for the sake of our lives and our country’s protection. I think my human weakness of fear, the fear for our safety and even fear of dying played a role in my being for these techniques. Even though I knew in my heart that violating the enemies’ human dignity to protect this nation was wrong I justified it at every turn just because I wanted to be safe. But it is contrary to human dignity to use force to compel a person by breaking down their will through pain. It reduces them to a mere animal level.
As of the present, even if the whole world was threatened and at stake I would not justify committing a moral evil in order to save it. We are not called to be of this world, we’re called to be of another world. Our souls are called to be ready for the next world, for the afterlife. We should not put our souls in peril during this life. This world is temporary. The afterlife is for all of eternity.
Kevin says that God has been working on me the past couple of weeks. I agree. God has touched my heart and has guided me to admit, accept, believe, and know that we shouldn’t do anything which violates the dignity of the human person, even if it would save our lives. Our flesh is temporary in this life but our souls will live on for all of eternity.
Citizen Tom has a very well thought out post where he asks Is Waterboarding a Terrorist with Vital Information Torture?
Really good post. Fear is at the root of so many moral errors, isn’t it? And the antidote is more faith.
Thank you @theraineyview. Yes, fear is indeed. The devil sure does use fear, or an unhealthy fear to lead us down the wrong path.
I’m moved by your sincere agonizing over this issue, Teresa. I’m not sure–to me the issue isn’t preserving the USA, but twisting a guilty person’s arm to save another innocent person’s life.
I’ll stipulate there’s “torture” that violates human dignity to an unacceptable degree—mutilation, electrodes, starvation. But is twisting your arm an essential violation of your human dignity? Other EITs? To lump it all under the word “torture” is to avoid the making of distinctions, perhaps necessary distinctions.
How about we spank them? I’m only half-kidding here.
I understand that Jesus taught that he who would save his life will lose it, and I believe that’s your bottom line here. However, Mighty Jehovah is also part of the Trinity, and at the Incarnation did not transmogrify into an inert Barney the Dinosaur who would tell a man to sit idly by and watch his children be murdered.
If a man rape your daughter, offer him your wife as well? I don’t think all of Jesus’ teachings can be abstracted like that.
Anyway, Teresa, thank you for your heartfelt essay, and I admire that you’ve kept your mind open and are constantly reassessing a very difficult question.
Tom,
To be honest maybe I shouldn’t have lumped all EIT’s together labeling them all as “torture”. I’m sure some are more severe than others. The ones you mentioned above and waterboarding I consider to be torture. Since I didn’t have a list of the different EIT’s and I couldn’t think of any that wouldn’t be considered torture I just stated that they all be considered torture. Maybe I was a bit hasty in doing so.
“How about we spank them? I’m only half-kidding here.” LOL! Well, some kids are spanked so…
I do see your point about Jesus but… since Jesus is God Incarnate I’m not sure that He would want us to go to extreme measures in violating a person’s human dignity in order to save others. I believe Jesus would want us to try and save lives but doing so using morally licit means. Free will? God does allow for the possibility of bad things happening when He doesn’t interfere with peoples’ free will.
Thank you very much for your comment and your compliments.
Thx, Teresa. My own comments above are the result of many hours of agonizing over the issue, so I wanted to discuss them with a sincere Catholic conscience.
The word “torture,” I have found, lumps too much stuff together to be helpful, conceals more than it reveals. So let’s dispense with it:
Would you break Hitler’s arm to stop the Holocaust?
That’s a mild ‘torture” when compared to that ultimate crime, but as Thomists [I also come from the RCC tradition], we can start with the essence of things and work forward from the degree and backward from the consequence.
Further, I think there is a Barney the Dinosaur sentimentality creeping into 21st century Christianity that’s unBiblical and theologically unsound. Perhaps because I’m male—it’s just not my idea of a father to stand by and let his children be raped and murdered.
And I realize God the Father isn’t really male—so what kind of mother would stand by and let her children be raped and murdered??? I can see Mohandas K. Gandhi being that inert because he was pretty weird, but I can scarcely imagine a female version!
Again, thank you, Teresa. I was sincere when I wrote I am moved by your “Catholic conscience,” which by definition is always active and never settled. I look forward to your meditations.
Tom,
Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate your comments which come from your sincere Catholic conscience. I can tell you have put much thought into your beliefs on this matter.
There is no one definition of torture. So what different people consider to be torture can become quite complicated. I actually wrote a post on that: http://catholibertarian.com/2012/01/03/the-tortured-definition-of-torture/
“we can start with the essence of things and work forward from the degree and backward from the consequence.”
Could you explain that further?
“Further, I think there is a Barney the Dinosaur sentimentality creeping into 21st century Christianity that’s unBiblical and theologically unsound. Perhaps because I’m male—it’s just not my idea of a father to stand by and let his children be raped and murdered.”
Would you call it the wussification of America?
I look forward to seeing you here more often. I looked and looked and didn’t see one but Do you have a blog?
God Bless and Have a wonderful Sunday!
Thanks for yr interest and reply, Teresa. I came across you over @ Kyle Cupp’s “Journeys in Alterity” blog, where you’re currently enjoying the hospitality of the resident Secular Inquisition.
I’m a contributor to the League of Ordinary Gentlemen mainpage [although I'm usually found in the comments], and have a sister “sub-blog” to Kyle’s called “Dutch Courage.”
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/timkowal/
I’m also @ American Creation
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/
which deals with religion and the American Founding. I should post more there too but am ubiquitous in the comments sections. [I seem to prefer dialogue to speechifying.]
As to essence, degree and consequence, all I meant was to take “Would you break Hitler’s arm to stop the Holocaust.” As reader SR puts it, sure we would. But what if it weren’t 6 million dead, but only one million? No change. How about 1000? 100? One person? Isn’t the murder of one person as much a crime as six million?
And to save him, would we break both Hitler’s arms, then? And a leg?Etc.
As SR points out, there’s a point past breaking his arm we wouldn’t go. That’s when the “essence” becomes “torture” and torture’s a moral no-go.
OK. But we see that up until that point there’s a “moral calculus” involved. The dilemma is finding “that point” beyond which we will not go. And, to the “wussification” question, would you want a husband or father who wouldn’t stand up for his family against the Hitlers of the world? Break his arms and legs?
I do see a simple-mindedness in the current strain of Christianity that pretty much reduces it to the Beatitudes. And although Roman Catholics are notorious for being bad at the Bible, is the Mighty Jehovah of the Old Testament [and the Old Testament itself] now non-operative, superseded by “Beatitudism”???
In saying that he who would save his life would lose it, is Jesus saying a father or mother or spouse should simply abandon their family [or by extension, fellow man!] to the Bad Guys?
I just don’t see that in there.
[Gee, wouldn't you like to know whether the modern day saint Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually participated in The Plot to Kill Hitler? He might've.]
I’ll continue to follow your adventures over @ Kyle’s place.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/kylecupp/
I don’t think they realize they just got hit by Hurricane Teresa.
Have to think about this one, will be back later:>) Good post! God Bless, SR
Hey Girl,
I am back and have even been talking to “hubby” about this one. (Showed him your post and he liked)
After much thought and reading the wonderful comments here as well, I have to tend to “agree” with you about “lumping together.”
I know torture on “religious persecution” in the past was such as placing a hot iron rod in the anal cavity of a person, pulling tongues out, fingernails out, cutting heads off etc… No, as a human being nor as a Catholic would I ever condone such “torture.”
Would I have broken “Hitler’s arm to stop him?” In all honesty yes, I would have. If that would have saved 6 million Jews, yes. I am not saying I would have liked it. I am not saying it would have been something that I would not have repented for, as Hitler was made by God just as the rest of us.
I think God would have understood “one broke arm” for “six million lives.”
This was a very good “thought provoking post” and one I truly had to think about. Thanks for making me think, as you always do!
Hope all is well with you. God Bless, SR
“I am back and have even been talking to “hubby” about this one. (Showed him your post and he liked)”
How awesome!
As far as breaking the arm of Hitler goes – I’m not sure whether breaking a person’s arm constitutes breaking the person’s will or not. But that would seem to violate a person’s human dignity. But, a broken arm is reparable. I’m flummoxed. I’ll have to think further on this one.
I can understand your saying Yes to being willing to breaking Hitler’s arm to save millions of people.
God Bless.
I continue to maintain the the line demarcating torture (in the context of interrogation) is determined not by the degree of pain or discomfort, but the intended and/or resulting affect upon the will of the one subjected to the techniques. It’s one thing to motivate someone to make a decision; it’s another to coerce them. In the former, the person acts as a person, with full consent of the will. It is he or she who acts. In the latter, the person is not himself or herself, not capable in the moment to make a free, rational decision. He or she becomes a puppet to the will of the interrogator.
Kyle,
I’m trying to understand what you are saying about the person’s will.
1) Would you say that how interrogation affects the will is related more to the psychological rather than the physical? Affecting the person psychologically, not physically?
2) Where do you draw the line between what you consider to be a motivation versus what you consider to be coercion?
3) Let’s say we have a person sitting in jail doing time for his having committed a crime. Is it possible for a person’s will to be violated or broken who is sitting in jail? Or are you more or less just worried about how his confession was obtained?
4) Would you consider breaking Hitler’s arm in the midst of battle to stop his killing millions of lives to be breaking his will?
God Bless.
1. As the soul and body are not separate, physical torture has psychological consequence.
2. The capacity to make a choice with full consent of the will.
3. There mere fact of sitting in jail would not, in itself, constitute coercion of the will, but circumstances such as sensory deprivation could make it so.
4. How would breaking Hitler’s arm in battle stop him from murdering millions of people?
Thank you for answering my questions, Kyle.
You make an extremely valid point about number 4. Since Hitler had people working for him – doing his bidding – breaking his arm probably wouldn’t have had any effect at all on stopping the holocaust. It seems to me that assassinating Him could be morally licit. If would have been in defense of human life.
I am still a bit fuzzy on what constitutes “full consent of the will”. I believe it means that the person chooses to say something solely on their own without the person being forced to either say something or do this or that.
[...] are several examples. My 180 on Torture reviews the issue of waterboarding. Is waterboarding torture? now thinks that it is. As the [...]
Citizen Tom,
Thank you very much for the Food for Thought Award. You are so thoughtful. God Bless.
Tom, SR, and Kyle,
Thank you very much for all of your comments. I am feeling a bit under the weather and will respond when I feel better. Which I’m hoping will be tomorrow. God Bless.
Tom,
I am now following both of your blogs. I’m following your American Creation via Facebook. I look forward to reading your posts.
I actually have two other blogs. One is mainly political and the other is mainly theological. http://teresamerica.blogspot.com/ — Political
http://tunecedemalissedcontraaudentiorito.blogspot.com/ — Theological
Going by your examples I think that I know what you mean by essence, degree and consequence.
I think it would be wrong or improper to reduce all of Christianity or God’s teachings in the Bible to “Beatitudism”. There is much more to God and Christianity than that. We are called to look at both the Old and New Testaments as a whole, not to discount what one or the other says.
“[Gee, wouldn't you like to know whether the modern day saint Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually participated in The Plot to Kill Hitler? He might've.]”
I read an excellent book on Bonhoeffer. It was by Eric Metaxas. Yes, he was involved in a plot to kill Hitler. Killing in defense of others or stopping him from murdering innocent human beings by killing him wouldn’t constitute torture. That would be a justifiable killing or a morally licit act.
God Bless.
I’m chuffed, Teresa. And you’ve caused quite a stir over at Kyle’s place.
FTR, Bonhoeffer’s complicity in The Plot to Kill Hitler is disputed
http://emu.edu/now/podcast/2011/02/23/dietrich-bonhoeffer-the-assassin-challenging-a-myth-recovering-costly-grace-mark-thiessen-nation/
and this issue does carry great problems for his devotees. There have been Mennonites who have abandoned him for abandoning his pacifism, and there are contrary theological implications as well, not-so-strangely enough, for “Beatitudism,” which I have questioned here, but which Bonhoeffer seems to have fully embraced at least at one point.
http://thesidos.blogspot.com/2012/10/bonhoeffer-tale-of-heroism-or-tale-of.html
There are criticisms of Metaxas’ biography, that it made him too “American,” precisely in the way I question a “Beatitudism” that stands by and lets family and fellow man die, that that “Beatitudism is exactly who bonhoeffer really was.
I know it appears to be merely an academic question, but it’s fraught with exactly what drove your “180″ and your post in the first place. So I remain open to the possibility that “Beatitudism” represents the true Bonhoeffer, and perhaps indeed the true Christianity! The informed “Catholic” conscience can never close its book on these things.
There’s a passage in the Old Testament that gave Ben Franklin a lot of trouble, that he said seemed more like it was from the Devil than from God. It’s the story of Yael [Jael], who invites the enemy captain into her tent, and when he falls asleep, she nails his head to the floor. [Literally!] Israel is delivered! [Judges 4:19]
That struck Franklin as not very nice. Would you invite Hitler into your tent and nail his head to the floor, thus becoming one of the great heroes of the Bible?
Thx again, TR. This question of Yael and “Beatitudism” is a helluva conundrum.
I understand your quandary, that is, your 180. As far as torture is concerned, waterboarding does not seem so bad. As part of their training, we put our own soldiers through waterboarding. At least, we use to. I don’t know what the current administration is doing.
Anyway, your post has given me an idea. Why are we having such a problem defining torture? What makes torture wrong? I think we are confusing what is illegal with what is wrong. To get them to do something they would otherwise refuse to do, we torture people all the time. When their children disobey them, parents often spank their children or restrict them to their bedrooms. When parents punish their children just to hear them scream, that is wrong. However, when they punish their children so they will learn self-discipline, that is generally considered good parenting.
Similarly, we put lawbreakers in prison — even solitary confinement — to instruct them and to protect the public. Previous generations put prisoners in stocks and whipped them. Even today, we execute lawbreakers. Is that — was that — wrong? I don’t think so. We do not torture lawbreakers out of sadistic pleasure or to further immoral schemes. We torture people because we care about them and the welfare of those they might otherwise harm.
So why have we banned all “torture”? I think the problem is three-fold.
1. Word usage. Even though not all “torture” is illegal, we define all torture as illegal. The legal definition is essentially wrongheaded.
2. The awkwardness of the Law. Writing a good law, particularly in era when we have so many legalistic ninnies, is hard to do. Even though it would be foolish to let some terrorist kill a bunch of people when we could stop him by forcing critical information out of him (Where did he hide the bomb?), such moral conundrums are so rare that it makes little sense to give criminal investigators the discretion to use thumbscrews.
3. Because wars can last quite a while, military combat can often provide opportunities where torture could produce information critical to combat operations. Unfortunately, if we torture the POWs we capture, our enemy will torture our soldiers when they capture them. So we try to reduce the horror with gentlemen’s agreements (that is, a treaty like the Geneva Convention), and we resort to techniques — such as waterboarding — that do not produce permanent physical damage. As if gentlemen started wars……
BTW. It is my pleasure to inform you that Citizen Tom (that’s me) has nominated you for The Food For Thought Award: http://citizentom.com/2012/09/16/the-food-for-thought-award/. I hope you will choose to accept. I would enjoy reading your favorite verses/passages from the Bible.
Citizen Tom,
I used to think the same things that you do about waterboarding but the difference between the military being trained and it being used during interrogations is that the person in the military is not being coerced to do this. They are doing it to better their skills. They understand that this is apart of their training whereas the detainee who is waterboarded is unable to give their free consent to being waterboarded. The interrogator is relying on their fear and the simulation of drowning to get them to break and tell them information. I can understand you position on this. I disagree but understand.
Thank you very much for the award. I accept and will fulfill my obligations soon. Thank you for your comment. God Bless.
Teresa – Fear and pain are part of life. More often than not, fear and pain result from poor choices. When we spank a child, imprison a lawbreaker, or crush another nation with military force, we rely upon whatever fear we can engender with pain to prevent others from breaking established rules of conduct. To produce fear is for the most part why we torture people.
TORTURE! The word has an awful conotation. Yet our Lord intended that pain be our daily instructor. You have read the stories of Job and the Apostle Paul? Do you doubt that our Lord allowed each of these men to suffer greatly and to endure? Didn’t they find the Lord’s instruction to be torture? To a lesser degree, don’t we all?
God has far more wisdom than you or I. No man or woman knows enough to guide another’s life so that all their sufferings work out for the best (Romans 8.28). Therefore, when we inflict pain upon another, we only have the right to do so out of the most grim necessity. Yet inflict pain we will. Otherwise, we cannot maintain the Rule of Law.
Unfortunately, our Socialist friends have little interest in the Rule of Law. They seek instead Utopia, and to that end they either twist or misunderstand almost every word they speak. Words such as torture? Because that word strikes such a dreadful chord, they abuse it with delight.
Anyway, I appreciate the fact you had your 180 on torture as the result of honest angst. Therefore, I consider worthwhile to review your thoughts about the matter.
With regard to the award, I look forward to seeing your post. Thank you for your acceptance for blessing us with your blog.
Hello, Ms. Rice. I am here by way of the recommendation from Citizen Tom.
The situation is difficult indeed. May I offer three ideas for consideration?
First, harm being done. As you and others have noted, “enhanced interrogation techniques” encompasses a number of different techniques, though in most peoples’ minds the term is synonymous with waterboarding. So, we can focus on that.
Let’s imagine a future (not very long from now) during which we can electronically stimulate a person’s brain to make them fear for their lives, but not actually suffer any physical harm whatsoever. Would that be considered torture? It might be, to some, but this number would be less than is currently opposed to waterboarding.
Now we go a little further, and induce in someone’s brain a feeling that it is good to cooperate and provide the requested information. They do not feel fear, do not suffer harm, but have been electronically encouraged in a way a little bit like a truth serum. There are no after-effects (other than potentially saved lives). Is that torture? We’re not that far from this now.
Consider that, in the main, waterboard actually does little physical harm, and generally none at all. It is traumatic enough, but uncountable millions of people who have actually been tortured would be delighted to be waterboarded instead. And, as noted above, it has long been part of our own military training.
Second, effectiveness. Some have complained that, under duress, people will say anything to stop the process. While this is true, it is ineffective — the people doing the interrogation are familiar with the situation, and have amassed often more information than the subject himself knows — except for certain specific details.
Lies offered to make the questioner go away are quickly (usually instantly) recognizes as such, and the effect is the opposite of what the subject wanted. He is quickly motivated to find something true to say, even if he does not reveal everything he knows. It is rare indeed that lies offered as false trails hold up for any period of time — the information obtained from EIT is generally of high quality and veracity, limited by the knowledge of the subject. (Usama bin Ladin’s driver will know people, but generally not many operational details, as an example.)
Third, appearances. Many are concerned that we will (or do) appear barbaric to our peers, because the modern world cannot accept torture. This process is problematic: It lumps all of this under “torture” as you noted, and it assumes that others do not practice it. I think the evidence has shown clearly that countries from South America to the Middle East to Europe to Asia still maintain truly barbaric practices, as much as they like to condemn the US.
And the “modern world” isn’t, yet, necessarily. Consider a time, a generation or a century from now, in which it might be considered “barbaric” to ever confine anyone against his or her will for any reason at all. To such a view, all of our jails would be lumped together as “torture chambers” ignoring — as the current crop does — just how horrific real torture truly is and was. The Death of a Thousand Cuts is no longer practices, but a hundred other techniques are that end in the questioner’s miserable, agonizing death, or his desire for it as improvement.
We cannot escape being called barbaric, no matter what we do. So we must search ourselves, and our own understanding and moral teachings, to decide what is the right thing to do in defense of our nation.
These EIT procedures were rarely applied — a handful of people over a period of several wartime years. And they had been reviewed by Democrats and Republicans alike and approved of — a situation that only changed when the issue could be used politically.
Our own thinking here must ignore politics, and focus on what is right to the best of our ability. This is what you have done, and I simply offer some additional points that might give you more, so to speak, Food for Thought.
Best wishes!
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Keith,
The scenario you presented is very interesting. If electronic stimulation is similar to truth serum I can’t see the harm in that. I don’t see how that would be considered to be torture. You are absolutely correct about the effectiveness of waterboarding. People who are intent on hating us are going to use whatever excuse and find a reason to hate us no matter what we do. You are spot on in your ideas on appearances.
Thank you very much for your comment. God Bless.
What an excellent discussion. I, too, am of two minds about torture. Hitler? I think breaking his arm is much too mild and am in the camp with those who wished to assasinate him. We must bear in mind that many of the islamic terrorists have a totally foreign mindset than you or I and in order to break them down reuires much harsher methods. And honestly I’m not sure I would call waterboarding torture. We’re not taking off body parts.
I agree that we as a nation need to be prepared to combat the terrorists. But I don’t think stooping down to their level is the answer. I would call waterboarding a less invasive type of torture than pulling out fingernails or burning someone’s flesh. I agree with you about assassinating Hitler. I think that would be justified.
Thank you for your comment @Freedom by the way
[...] thoughtful post from a friend of a friend has me thinking about the issue of torture. Is it permissible? Is it moral? Is it [...]
[...] My 180 on Torture, Teresa Rice says no. Good post! I suggest reading it and the comments. What follows are my [...]
Teresa — Thanks for the link back.