Yesterday's post was instigated by a remark by Senator Angus King during the hearing for President-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Hegseth didn't answer King's questions on the use of torture to the senator's satisfaction which elicited from him the rather gratuitous comment that Hegseth must think "torture's okay."
I argued yesterday that this was unfair inasmuch as torture is not an easy thing to define. Today, I'll argue, furthermore, that even though it's morally wrong, evil, in fact, to use torture purely to punish or for a sick amusement, it's not an absolute wrong.
To make my case I've dredged up an old post from several decades ago. See what you think:
So there I was the other night in thrall to the taut drama and machinations unfolding in the second season DVD of the thriller series called 24.
Determined to be patient with several gaping holes and other silliness in the story-line, I let myself be caught up in the suspense as terrorists planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Los Angeles and set it to go off "today." The Counter Terrorism Unit led by superhero Jack Bauer is tasked with saving the lives of millions of people.
Well, what should happen but that one of the terrorists who knows where the bomb is located falls into Jack's hands. Time is short and he has to discover the whereabouts of the weapon before it explodes, incinerating everything and everyone within a radius of a couple of miles and spreading a deadly cloud of radiation for hundreds of miles more.
Naturally, the terrorist refuses to talk. Jack cuffs him about the head once or twice but he knows that such measures are futile. He could, of course, employ waterboarding but that seems to be unknown to the script writers and besides it would violate the tenets of woke ideology, not to mention the Geneva Conventions which sagely affirm that the lives of millions of Americans are simply not worth the panic experienced by a single thug who wishes to slaughter them.
So, what does our superhero do? Those of you who are fans will find this to be very old news, but for those of you who have more important things to do on Monday nights than to watch a television show, I shall tell you and then ask some questions.
Jack has anticipated his prisoner's reticence and, unbeknownst to the viewer, has had the police in the terrorist's home country (which for some reason is never named) arrest the man's family (two sons and a wife). They bind and gag the hapless innocents in chairs and train a television camera on them. The video feed is up-linked and sent to a computer screen that the prisoner in L.A. can see. Already I can envision Andrew Sullivan and the editorial staff of the New York Times yelling at their televisions that Bauer can't do this, he's flouting the Geneva Conventions, he's a cruel, amoral imperialist pig, he's no better than the terrorists, etc. But it gets worse.
Agent Bauer then tells the prisoner that unless he spills the beans right now about where the bomb is to be found he will order the police in the unnamed foreign country to execute the man's eldest son. The terrorist's resolve is shaken but not broken. Bauer gives the order by phone, and the viewer sees on the computer screen a policeman kick over the boy's chair and shoot twice. The terrorist's family screams, the terrorist is traumatized, and the viewer is stunned, mostly at how little regard Bauer seems to have for the Geneva Conventions, international law, and enlightened moral opinion.
Now Bauer is screaming at the terrorist to tell him where the bomb is or he will order the execution of the youngest boy. The terrorist cannot withstand the psychological and emotional torture any longer. He breaks and gives Bauer the information he needs. The terrorist is then taken out of the room, and the scene focuses on the computer screen where we see the foreign police untying and releasing the man's family, including the boy who was supposedly shot.
The whole thing was a set-up, a ruse to deceive the prisoner into thinking that his family was being murdered when in fact they were not.
Now this ploy was certainly a violation of the Geneva Conventions on torture, even if no one was physically harmed (although no doubt both the prisoner and his family were terrified). So here's my first question: Given the circumstances, was Bauer justified in deceiving the prisoner in this way?
Is what he did so beyond the pale that it would have been better to allow millions of people to die a horrible death than to lie to this man in such a way as to make him believe that his silence was costing the lives of his loved ones when it really wasn't?
A great many people would answer that question with a resounding "Yes, it would be better that millions die than that this man have to endure the pain of that awful deception". Certainly the authors and signatories of the Geneva Conventions would answer this way, and presumably so would Senator King.
Does that strike you as absurd?
Suppose your family were visiting the city in which the bomb was planted and you are somehow privy to the events as they unfold. You're terrified. Your children could be incinerated if that bomb goes off. Would you object to what Bauer was doing?
If after the bomb is disarmed and you're hugging your spouse and children and thanking God that everyone is okay could you say to your children and spouse that you're so happy that they're okay, that they weren't harmed, but that, truth to tell, you think it would've been better had they been burned to death in a nuclear fireball, than that the terrorist be administered the ghastly treatment to which Bauer subjected him?
Those who insist that torture is an absolute moral wrong would have to answer that, yes, they would.
Some say that it's unchristian to engage in such dehumanizing behavior, but is it Christian to be able to possibly prevent a great evil but choose to not do so? Would it be loving to refrain from preventing the suffering of thousands of people out of moral squeamishness? Sometimes life hands people excruciating choices. At such times one has to do what in their honest judgment is least evil and most loving.
Saving the lives of one's family and tens of thousands of others at the cost of traumatizing the terrorist is, I think, both. Feel free to disagree.
