Stealing torture's thunder
I'm going to take the subject and run with it here. Presumably, everyone in this discussion agrees that 9/11 was unjustified. Even though, from a Muslim extremist perspective, it had good consequences (the destruction of US property), we would all agree that it was morally unacceptable in some absolute way.
standingout and redhurt think, contra j. morgan and me, that, despite the bad consequences of roughing up Islamic prisoners, the good (obtaining useful information and preventing soldiers from returning to the battlefield) outweighs the bad (causing human beings suffering to some extent). Therefore, "that which is taking place at Gitmo" (avoiding labels here) is justified, morally acceptable. Everyone with me so far? Good.
Now come out on a limb with me here. Pretend that we find a videotape of President Bush and Dick Cheney conversing during late 2002. W says "The weapons inspectors have completed their jobs--there are no WMDs left, and Saddam has no nuclear capabilities whatsoever. He's even agreed to let more inspectors and human rights workers in." Cheney says "Let's get that mofo anyway. The American public will go along with it--they're still reeling from 9/11. This country needs a war."
I think such a videotape would go a long way towards undermining even the staunchest supporters of the Iraq war. Now let's say a plane gets shot down over Iraqi airspace, the pilots are captured, and Saddam does exactly "that which is taking place at Gitmo" (minus the Koran) to our pilots, in order to get information about Operation Kick Iraq's Ass. redhurt, your argument (from "Inhumanity," below) binds you to say that he is completely justified in doing this, and is in no way being inhumane.
posted by CharlesPeirce @ 10:02 AM
26 comments
26 Comments:
If the pilot was flying a combat sortie when he was downed then Saddam would be justified. I would be freaking amazed that he showed that much restraint, but thats beside the point. As long as he followed the Geneva Convention he would be justified. No one would be happy to know someone they care about is being treated that way, but its war. Being a POW means being interrogated. Thats just the way it is. We are not even bound by the Geneva Convention with most of the people in Gitmo because of their 'unlawful comabatant' status, but our treatment still falls within its restrictions. I think that we are treating our prisoners better than any other country in the world would, and I think every US POW that has been interrogated wishes that their captors used methods like those we are using today rather than whatever torture they endured.
By 'every US POW' I mean every US citizen that was ever a POW in another country.
I appreciate your consistency.
Let me make a little case and see what people think of it. What we keep coming back to is this contention by the Right that because these are unlawful combatants, we are not bound by the requirements of the Geneva Convention, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, or U.S. laws regarding due process and against cruel and unusual punishment (all of which are substantially, regularly, and as a matter of policy violated on a daily basis at GTMO). Let me make the case that while we are not legal bound to these by the requirements of those documents, we are ideologically bound to them. The premise that undergirds any of the claims in those documents is one of universal human dignity and value that under no circumstances ought to be violated. Ideologically, all of our anti-torture and anti-cruelty laws are rooted in old fashioned, universal, Enlightenment claims concerning a) commonality/equality between all human persons, b) the rights that are indelible and intrinsic aspects of being a human person, and c) the responsibilities of society, particularly the state, to respect those individual rights, even to its own detriment. Now, it seems to me completely ideologically inconsistent to buy any claims made in the Constitution or other Western legal document in the last 250 years and then also to buy that they only apply to a particular group of people who have a particular citizenship of status. They cannot be universal claims and not universally applied. They cannot be meaningful legal statutes if they are not universal claims. Therefore, they cannot be meaningful legal statutes unless they are universally applied. So, I think that by making the case that we don’t have to treat detainees by the same standards we would treat an American citizen held in a county jail in our country because they don’t wear a distinguishable uniform and weren’t signatories to a Convention completely undercuts the case that we have something worth defending in the first place.
"all of which are substantially, regularly, and as a matter of policy violated on a daily basis at GTMO" I disagree. If nothing else there is no due process being violated -- we're not holding them for a crime. They are not being held as criminals -- although they might be in addition. They are being held as POWs. Thats normal in any war. What should we do with them if not detain them? Try them and release them? Put captured enemy soldiers right back out on the battlefield? Thats insanity. Most of them are being held because we are at war with them and releasing them would be idiotic. I doubt that many of them are interrogated that regularly anyway, because most of them probably don't know anything, and we know that. In every war through all of time its customary not to release enemy soldiers from prison while the war is still going on. So due process has nothing to do with Gitmo.
j. morgan, what you're basically saying is that Geneva Conventions aren't something to be invoked or rejected at will: they express universal claims. You're saying that no one "doesn't fall under" the Geneva Conventions, which is really to say that no one should be treated the way that the prisoners at gitmo are being treated. I agree--I'm just more upset at the fact that the US has 725 military bases abroad than I am that some Muslims are being abused (though they are being abused.)
standingoutinthecold: you are making an ends-means argument: because it would benefit our 'war on terror' by protect troops, we cannot release these enemy combatants from GTMO. I am not interested in what is practical, useful, or in keeping with the history of war because, frankly, that history has been an intolerably unethical one. What I am interested in is whether or not the United States is being ethically and philosophically consistent by grounding it's entire legal tradition in universal human rights and then only extending those rights to certain groups of people (in this case, American citizens). My point is simply this: IF we are being ideologically inconsistent and IF the ideologies that we are violating are the foundational principles of America that we are fighting to defend in the first place, THEN by violating them we are undercutting our justification for defending them. You can’t claim that American is worth fighting and killing and dying for unless you do what it takes to make sure that it really is. When the government doesn’t treat GTMO detainees in the same way that it treats its own citizens, then it makes that an impossible case.
It is my understanding the the conditions at Gitmo are far superior to those of our own prison system. So, we treat enemy soldiers and terrorists better than our own criminals. That says something -- either that we treat our enemies very well or we treat our criminals very poorly. Or both, which is probably closer to the truth.
virtutis, I think you missed the point entirely even though you seemed to very clearly state it:
“The US constitution never makes the claim to be universally applicable. The idea that a legal document can only be valid if it is universally applicable is completely foreign to our system of laws. The underlying principles that guide its creation may be considered universal, but not the document itself.”
That statement in and of itself is a logical impossibility. Either everyone, regardless of citizenship, has the same inalienable rights or they don’t. If they do, then, in order to uphold that principle of universal human rights, we are obligated to treat non-citizens the same way we treat citizens, even if, as a matter of law, we have no such obligations. If they do not, then we are calling into to question to philosophical foundation for our entire system of government. Again, I am not making a legal or practical argument – I am making an ethical argument. IF the Constitution extends certain guaranteed rights to individual Americans on the basis of universal claims, THEN it is inconsistent to extend those guaranteed rights only to Americans and consider those rights to be universal.
“The third Geneva Convention specifically mentions that POWs are to be held for the duration of hostilities unless a separate agreement is made between the two powers. To release enemy soldiers to continue their fight against you is self destructive madness. I have heard that 4 of prisoners we released from Gitmo have subsequently been killed while attacking our forces in Afghanistan (I’ve been looking for the link all day, if I find it I will post it).”
1) These are not POWs – they are enemy combatants. As the White House has insisted from the beginning, these detainees are not subject to the requirements of the Geneva Convention. So don’t invoke it selectively.
2) You keep on making a functional argument: It would be self destructive madness, therefore it is ethical to hold detainees until the end of the conflict. Like I said, that is not at issue at all: we are talking ethics, not utility. It doesn’t matter if holding detainees feeds millions of hungry children in Africa, that has nothing to do with whether it is ethical to hold them or not.
Anyone want to try to answer j. morgan's dilemma? Let me splice quotes:
Either everyone, regardless of citizenship, has the same inalienable rights [as we do] or they don’t.
If they do, we are obligated to treat non-citizens, including POWs, the same way we treat citizens, even if, as a matter of law, we have no such obligations.
If they do not, then we are calling into question the philosophical foundation for our entire system of government [and undermining what is so great about America.]
Have at it, gentlemen. It seems to me that it's impossible to go between the horns here--you're going to have to grasp it by the first or the second.
I don't understand what rights of theirs we're violating. They don't have the right to fight against the US without being interrogated and imprisoned if captured. Neither do our citizens. You might say that everyone has the right to be treated morally, humanely. But, as has been aptly demonstrated here, morality is, at least partly, in the eye of the beholder. When our criminals misbehave in prison we lock them in solitary confinement for awhile. Thats not very nice either. Is that a violation of the intent of the Constitution? I just don't see where our ideals are being violated. You have the right to due process when you break the law. You have no such right when you attack the military.
I see there's been a lot of action while I've been working today. Excellent.
I think J. Morgan's making a good point, and I agree with him. My knowledge of the conventions being fuzzy, I haven't envoked freedom from Geneva as an argument for harassing enemy combatants, so I won't now.
I believe we should treat all of our enemy prisoners with a certain level of respect simply because they are human beings. I won't say we ought to enforce the geneva convention for them unilaterally, but as it pertains to what is considered too inhumane to be used as an acceptable means of interrogation, I'll say we should implement it. We shouldn't be allowed to do whatever we want to these people just because there's been no legal boundaries placed yet. I completely agree that ideologically, America has got to stand for it's principles first, and allow these principles to guide our actions.
That being said, I don't think this means we should just release our captured prisoners back into the field, or that interrogations should stop. They should be held responsibly and ethically, and human rights investigators who perform responsible investigations should be allowed to ensure that this is taking place. We should do what we can to extract what information they might have without violating their human rights. I do not think the interrogation tactics I posted in favor of originally fall into this category.
I have a few other points I'd like to make:
1.) The Geneva Convention doesn't and can't apply here, in either sides favor. It's a document created to protect soldiers with structured information about a military campagin from inhumane treatment at the hands of other soldiers. This isn't a war between soldiers or nations, so implementing this treaty in any way is nonsensical. We can follow it's principles and the guidelines of treating prinsoners humanely, but that's as far as I think it makes sense to take things. You're going to have to prove to me that the ways in which the geneva convention is being violated in Gitmo are relevant to the inhumane torture of prisoners before any of your claims that it's being violated "regularly" will be worth much.
2.) j. morgan: "Geneva Convention, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, or U.S. laws regarding due process and against cruel and unusual punishment (all of which are substantially, regularly, and as a matter of policy violated on a daily basis at GTMO)"
sources? explination? qualifications? While standards of inhumane treatment obviously do apply, again, this isn't the situation either geneva or U.S. laws exist for, so they can't be applied unilaterally.
3.) Charles: I don't see what your tape of Cheney and Bush has to do with the plane getting shot down over Iraqi airspace. If during the first gulf war or early in this second, Hussein had downed a US Military plane manned by a U.S. Soldier, the person should be held in complete accordance to Geneva, since it's obviously a situation of uniformed soldier from nation A. being captured by nation B. Likewise, if we'd captured soldiers in Hussien's army during the time when there was a coordinated military to be part of, they should be treated as POW's. After that, we need new rules because it's not the same situation anymore. But they should still be treated humanely - I won't compromise that.
If Saddam had captured CIA agents enflaming insurrections in Iraq before the war, he would be completely justified in holding and interrogating them the same way we are the people in Gitmo now.
4.) The posts about torture on this blog have never unilaterally endorsed everything that occurs in Gitmo or the United States interrogation tactics. What I did say was that the kinds of harassment listed in the BBC article I linked did not constitute inhumane treatment and that I was perfectly fine with them. The sort of beatings Caler posted from Amnesty's report I find deplorable.
5.) I would be absolutely fine with any of the tactics listed in the BBC article being used to interrogate prisoners in the US, if it made sense. Interrogation of our own citizens is usually in a different context - not so much for information as confession, or when it is for information the interrogatee has not always been arressted, i.e. rendered a prisoner in the first place. I would expressly not like US prisoners to be interrogated by sexy women, because I think it would be completely useless and far too enjoyable. If anything, that should be part of a plea-bargain: you fess up, and Lucy here will cuddle with you for an hour or so. I'm kidding.
6.) Virtutis: While they may sometimes be a bit ridiculous, Amnesty International is irreproachable enough that you're going to have to do better than to call them "anti-American". They're consistent and very thorough. They're very liberal and definitely not inline with mainstream American thinking on what does and does not constitute a violation of human rights (they unilaterally oppose the death penalty, for instance), but they are a formidible and consistent force for decency in the world, and deserve better and more complete crticism than that.
standing: I do think everyone has a certain right to being treated with some degree of respect simply for their humanity. Interestingly enough, this is the entire basis of the pro-life movement: everyone has a right to live, not to be tortured with saline injections, partial birth beheading, etc. Just because you attack our military does not give us the right to abuse you in any way we see fit for whatever reason we see fit. I don't think Cristina Aguilera or water wake-ups violate these basic human rights, although I'll never listen to her music by choice.
I'm all for a little accountability for Amnesty. China is and has been far worse in business as usual than Gitmo, and they're oppressing the world's largest population, while we've got a few hundred. Your more recent criticism is valid and valuable, but "anti-american" wasn't.
Amnesty's homepage, while featuring the US story first, isn't ignoring other issues worldwide, and isn't giving this one THAT much more attention than the others. I mean, afterall, it is probably one of the highest profile issues world wide, as is anything the US might be guilty of. Many more people visiting the site want to know about Amnesty's position on Gitmo than the Congo, so you can't blame them for being sensative to that.
"I do think everyone has a certain right to being treated with some degree of respect simply for their humanity"
I never said they didn't. I just said that I don't think that we are violating any of their rights, including that one.
Both sides of the argument seem to be pretty well covered, so I'll limit myself to one (a randian and most likely redundant) opinion before I move in a different direction. Ready? Here goes...
J. Morgan Caler and CharlesPeirce: If I understand correctly that our moral and ethical ideology demands that we value the rights of aliens to such an extent that their treatment supercedes our security, i.e. we must uphold what we believe is universal truth over the "rational self-interest" of our nation (in this case releasing detainees to our own detriment) then- I strongly believe our reign as a superpower is finished. I don't see how this kind of rhetoric serves any purpose or helps America. Pardon my ignorance about the left- but are you really global citizens first and Americans second?
Drawing from that point and changing gears, I'm going to play devil's advocate, take the low road, do a little warmongering, and echo "Darth" Cheney's fictional statement- "This country needs a war." Pardon me if I'm a little "romantical" here, but... I don't believe man has adjusted to the point where sitting in a shop selling shirts or in a cubicle writing code offers enough self-actualization and fulfillment to replace hunting your own dinner or wearing a skirt while swinging a claymore (the arbitrary Braveheart reference). If it has, then why do I and so many others (pardon my hyperbole but I know a few) envy our grandfathers for being able to fight in WWII? Why do we watch Band of Brothers, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or the Matrix religiously, and in the case of the most recent Star Wars or the Matrix installments- even if we know they are crap? Do you have a copy of "Wild at Heart" sitting on your bookshelf? (I may be off base there, I haven't really read much more than the back cover but I think it's applicable.)
I think we all crave some kind of fight (be it physical or blog comment warfare) and I believe one of the best things for our generation would be to unite and fight a good, no holds barred, fight against something we all could universally declare evil without calling our troops Nazis or using them for political leverage. (See 2004 election- both sides are at fault.) The only "nation-building" we should be doing is our own, and if that means taking out Saddam not because he deserves it, but because it serves American interests (possibly oil- I said I'm playing Devil's Advocate) then I'm for it. It may be cliche, but "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." Rome may have fallen overtly to foreign powers, but only as the result of political infighting.
I hate to bang the Fight Club drum to loudly, but "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives."
Sorry for the rant, I probably should have made that a posting on my own blog... I don't want to kill the previous topics, so ignore the latter half if necessary. Also, don't think I'm advocating some kind of patriotic groupthink, I like reading and posting on these blogs because of the political dissension.
Jack, I know you're saying that you're playing devil's advocate...but come on, man. J. Morgan Caler's already answered you: If America has degenerated to the point where it's acceptable to do anything in the name of furthering our own interests, then it's not an America worth fighting for. The world doesn't have to be an amoral sphere where might makes right; we don't have to be another evil empire. And what you've said isn't Randian at all. Rand advocates exchange for mutual benefit, and honest respect of what others can produce. Howard Roark would never beat someone up and take their property. Howard Roark would probably never even go to Iraq. You're not being Randian or Libertarian or even Conservative - you're being Imperialist.
To advocate war for the sake of war is the clearest way of stating you have no idea what war is like or about. I believe our glory of war comes from a desire to conquer fear. I'm all for acting like a man and stuff, but if you have to go around conquering pathetically weak dictatorships to do it, you haven't achieved or proved a damn thing.
"J. Morgan Caler's already answered you: If America has degenerated to the point where it's acceptable to do anything in the name of furthering our own interests, then it's not an America worth fighting for."
I don't think that is what I was saying at all, I was saying if America holds itself to such a high moral standard that we have to act against our own interests, then our time is up. We aren't doing things in the name of America, we're doing things in the name of global fairness or political correctness, etc... The closest I can come analogy-wise would be a monk who claims he can reach nirvana by suppressing bodily needs. Starving himself may be acceptable under this mindset, but eventually he will succumb to its effects.
As for the rest of that, I'll sometimes try to be ridiculous for the sake of ridiculousness- consider it withdrawn.
I understand the specific argument against not returning captured prisoners to the battlefield, but I don't see how this would be holding to any kind of sensible ideal. It's not a question of acting for our ideals or our self-interests because acting for our ideals should be in our long term best interests.
I guess that doesn't make as much sense as I thought it did. Now that I'm proven wrong, let me offer my apologies...
Well, you were playing devil's advocate. :)
Let’s see: your felt need for self-actualization through violence vs. thousands of lives... which is more important?
Jackscolon:
“If I understand correctly that our moral and ethical ideology demands that we value the rights of aliens to such an extent that their treatment supercedes our security, i.e. we must uphold what we believe is universal truth over the "rational self-interest" of our nation (in this case releasing detainees to our own detriment) then- I strongly believe our reign as a superpower is finished.”
1) I think it is ridiculous that you are pitting “rational self-interest” against “what we believe is universal truth.” I think this is where you aren’t getting our case: it doesn’t matter what we (that is Charles, you, or I) think is universally true; what does matter is what universal truths were and are assumed that support every basic value, law, and freedom in the history of America. This isn’t about you and I, this is about our American heritage. It seems to me that it has to be in our rational self-interest to avoid undermining those universal assumptions that make America what it is; because once we do, America ceases to be – which is really harmful to our self-interest.
2) Why do people on the “Right” think that security is only a matter of guns and bombs? You know, there is such a thing as intellectual and ethical security. There is a certain level of intellectual and ethical integrity that is necessary among both the leaders and the populous of a free, just, equitable, and civic society to maintaining self-security.
3) From my perspective as a historian, America was never supposed to be a super power. In that sense, I don’t see it as a huge loss to our nation if we have to abandon that in order to be what we say we are. Nonetheless, I think you are right. By the very nature of an intentionally-limited, free republic, there are restrictions – very powerful restrictions– on how much power the government can wield before it betrays itself and its citizenry. The “Right” seems to see this very clearly when it comes to gun control or the free market (in short, anything that affects them directly), but fails to see that it is equally true about that government’s foreign policy, military, “security.”
“I don't see how this kind of rhetoric serves any purpose or helps America. Pardon my ignorance about the left- but are you really global citizens first and Americans second?”
1) It isn’t rhetoric, friend. This is the stuff that America is all about. America isn’t about flexing its muscles against Muslims or even Nazis; its about cultivating human potential for justice and equity through principled restraint in light of freedom, both on the part of the citizens of America and the governments that represent them.
2) I couldn’t help you answer any questions about the Left – I am not part of it. I am a conservative (that means I am not a “Conservative” on the political “Right,” which is code these days for being a Neo-Conservative) in the truest and most historical sense possible for an American. And, I don’t know anything about this global citizen business – I think it was a thinly-veiled attempt at calling me anti-American or something. But, to answer your question, no, I am really not a global citizen first and American second.
I think the Right's interest in militaristic forms of security lays in that they are hard and quantifiable, where as "ethical and intellectual" security are vague at best. But I don't think the Right believes security is simply a matter of guns and bombs - they'd say that without right thinking (i.e. ethical and intellectual integrity) in the people, all the bombs in the world won't make much difference. Hence their emphasis on worldviews, morals and values in public schools and public office, and their absolute hatred of bias in the media.
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