Torture - What Is It and Is It Ever Justified?

The controversy that has abounded recently about the use of waterboarding as an “enhanced interrogation technique” for terrorist detainees is rather superfluous. Torture is different to different people, depending on your frame of reference or the “relative” circumstances. Maybe, you’re like the person who said about pornography, “I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it”. Is that the way we see torture?

Torture is technically defined as something that causes intense suffering and/or pain particularly in the context of punishment or coercion. The legal difference between torture and other forms of ill treatment lies in the level of severity of pain or suffering imposed. In addition, torture requires the existence of a specific purpose behind the act, such as to obtain information. Methods of torture can be both physical and/or psychological and can have lasting effects.

It is really difficult to get your arms around the legal definition since courts in different countries don’t agree. For example, the European Convention of Human Rights (HCHR) definition, as interpreted by the Court of Strasbourg, considers torture as just inhuman and degrading treatment, which can mean no invasive action at all. That means, for example, all the detainees are being tortured because they are being held without trial. What about what the U.S. government did to Japanese citizens during WWII, or what police do to criminals as a matter of routine?

I think we make the mistake of getting bogged down in the definition, which is rather illusive, but should speak to the events or conditions that cause the use of torture and then make moral judgment from that.

John Locke, the 17th century English philosopher who greatly influenced our founders and is the source of our belief in the rule of law and the priority of legislative power, also believed there were situations where the rule of law did not apply. These are circumstances where the executive branch has the “power to act according to discretion, for the public good with prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it”. Remember when President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1861 when Confederate sympathizers in Maryland burned bridges and attacked federal troops. The Supreme Court ruled that only Congress could do this and ordered the release of the criminals. Lincoln disobeyed the order, saying that the executive must sometimes do things it would not do in ordinary times. Does this change how you view Lincoln or his values?

I would say that 9/11 was extraordinary, even more so than the attack on Pearl Harbor. The question is: Was the nation in danger on 9/11? Was the President justified to imprison the terrorists in Guantanamo? Were the enhanced interrogations justified? Were they useful in protecting our country and its citizens?

Our beliefs and values are such that nothing stands in the way of protecting our freedom and the safety of our people. If the world thinks less of us because we waterboarded 3 high level terrorists in the process, so be it. Let’s not dress this issue up in some righteous quest to save our reputation in the world. If you ask me, doing less to protect our freedom and the lives of our citizens would actually harm our status on the world stage, give comfort to our enemies, and send the wrong message to our friends and allies.