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Hero For Christ

Torture



By Christopher Sunami, 12/7/06

Recently, there has been a lot of rhetoric defending, or even praising the use of torture by American forces as an effort to "stop terror," "win the war," or even to "save even one American life." This essay, however, will show that attitude to be crucially misguided on both moral and practical grounds.

Stop Terror?

In general, the justification put forward in support of torture is that it allows us to discover and thwart the plans of "evildoers," "haters-of-freedom-and-America," and real or potential terrorists. This concept, however, rests on the wrong idea that there is a set and limited number of intrinsically evil people in the world. If that were true then fighting evil (in the form of terrorism) would indeed be as simple as identifying and eliminating or neutralizing all the evil people.

In truth, however, a terrorist is not necessarily an evil person by nature, but rather a person who commits evil acts because of beliefs, circumstances and emotions. In addition it seems reasonable to say that terrorists commit their acts not in the deliberate pursuit of evil, but out of the delusion that those acts serve larger ends that are good.

This is important because it leads to a grave practical problem for torture. While torture may in some circumstances lead to information that neutralizes the plans of one particular person and group, it simultaneously supports circumstances and emotions that promote the creation of more terrorists. The sense of anger and betrayal felt by someone upon learning that a close friend or respected community member has been abused, tortured or killed will inevitably lead many who might otherwise be neutral or even an admirers of America to realign themselves, perhaps secretly, with those who hate our country.

Thus, torture makes those who witness or experience it more vulnerable to the temptations of evil, even if they are good people by nature. This is the downfall of torture as a pragmatic choice, as it is of any policy that neutralizes an enemy at the price of creating new enemies out of those who once might have been friends.

Win the War?

It is another mistake to view the war in which we are engaged as primarily a war of physical force and domination. Instead, this is a war that must also be fought in people’s hearts and minds. By adopting torture as a tool, however, the American forces lost a crucial and perhaps decisive battle for the hearts and minds not only of the Iraqis, but also of the American people at home.

The American Way of Life?

Although an additional concern is sometimes phrased as protecting "even one American life," the more expansive notion is that we are fighting for the American Way of Life as a whole. It is, of course, true that some have debased that phrase to mean nothing more than the venal pleasures of material consumption or freedom not only from worries about safety, but also from all concerns about any of the less fortunate in the world. In the better sense of the phrase, however, if the American Way of Life is anything at all valuable and worth preserving, it is as a moral outlook, a set of beliefs and values that affirm human dignity and equality.

From that second point of view, torture is not merely a minor moral concession, but the willing sacrifice of the entire treasure supposedly under guard. If we as the American people endorse torture, or even allow it to be practiced under our auspices, not only have the terrorists won, but we have become their collaborators. What benefit do the Iraqis reap by their liberation from Saddam Hussein, the torturer and murderer of his own people, if we recreate ourselves in his image, as his duplicate and successor?

Safety?

Thus, through torture, we ourselves become the enemy we once sought to defeat. Just like the terrorist, the torturer is a not-evil person who commits evil acts because of beliefs, circumstances and emotions, and from the delusion that those acts serve larger ends that are good.

In the end, we the Americans left at home, insulated from the grim realities of the moral crimes we tacitly endorse, shall lose the very safety we sought to gain. We may yet be strong enough to defend ourselves against outside invaders, but who is left to protect us from our own government, from our own neighbors, and from the enemy inside our own mirrors.

See Also:

  1. Peace
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