I’ve made the same mistake of trying to look at torture in a serious way (see the July-August 2004 issue of Commentary if you care), and naturally being labeled a “torture advocate.” No one in his right mind “advocates” torture. In a vacuum, it is a repugnant moral evil. Even if it weren’t, it’s already against the law, so this is all grand-standing in any event.
I am also against the evil of breaking into people’s homes and taking their belongings. Nonetheless, I reluctantly but strongly favor criminal search warrants if the public welfare requires it. Now, it should obviously be a lot harder to get a torture warrant than a search warrant. But the point is that evils don’t exist in a vacuum. They have to be measured against competing evils.
None of the self-righteous bloviating against torture ever seems to have a satisfying answer to the ticking-bomb scenario. Is it wrong, say, to inflict non-lethal but extreme pain against a culpable terrorist who is aware of an imminent bombing that would kill tens of thousands of moral innocents but who is unwilling to provide life-saving information?
As I’ve recounted here, no less a doctrinaire torture opponent than Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh was forced to admit, in testimony at the confirmation hearings for AG Gonzales, that it would probably be necessary to get rough with a detainee in such circumstances. That’s not because he “advocates” torture; I assume it is because he grudgingly, soberly recognizes that there are some conceivable instances in which it is the lesser moral evil than idling by while thousands are slaughtered.
Enough with “the torture is despicable” line. We’ve got that; no one is saying it’s not. And we all understand the profound, slippery-slope dangers of legalizing any torture. That is a very serious concern for serious people. But please, as the price of admission, tell us outright that: You are prepared to let thousands of people be slaughtered before disturbing a hair on the head of a Khalid Sheik Mohammed-type who might be in a position to help you stop a plot you truly have good reason to think is underway.
If you can’t say that, then all you are really saying is that you’d draw the torture line in a different place.