Andrew Sullivan quotes John Yoo, a former Bush administration official, asking a perfectly sensible question about the use of torture:
"Death is worse than torture, but everyone except pacifists thinks there are circumstances in which war is justified. War means killing people. If we are entitled to kill people, we must be entitled to injure them. I don't see how it can be reasonable to have an absolute prohibition on torture when you don't have an absolute prohibition on killing. Reasonable people will disagree about when torture is justified. But that, in some circumstances, it is justified seems to me to be just moral common sense. How could it be better that 10,000 or 50,000 or a million people die than that one person be injured?"
Sullivan then displays his gift for missing the point by responding with this:
Yoo seems completely unaware of just war theory. There is an obvious distinction between the killing necessary in a just war - killing that should nonetheless be minimized and directed solely at legitimate military targets - and torturing defenseless detainees who are already under your complete control. With Yoo, one is tempted to wonder what is worse: his ignorance of basic moral concepts, his support for any means necessary against terrorism, his empowerment at the highest levels of the Bush administration, or the completely dispassionate way in which he discusses the most horrifying acts of sadism and cruelty. One day, we must find a way to bring this war criminal to justice.
Sullivan never presents an argument as to why a proscription against torture should be absolutized in this screed. He simply assumes that any moral person would agree that it should be. If they don't agree, why, then, they must be war criminals.
For a reply to Sullivan's assumption that the ban on torture must be absolute click on the NAE on Torture link in the Hall of Fame in the left margin of the page.
RLC