That is what the much-praised syndicated columnist, Fox News contributor, and best-selling author is. Not that this puts him out of touch with most conservatives and many conservative Christians - in fact, with most Americans. Says Krauthammer:
Now Dick Cheney on 9/11 gave the order to shoot down a civilian American airliner, had it not gone down in a field before it reached Washington. Can you imagine what that means, to deliberately kill a planeload of innocents because it had to be done given the alternative? This is a morally serious man.
Well, I have doubted this assertion before. I will grant that he's honest enough to admit that the term "enhanced interrogation" is just a semantic legal dodge. He's quite comfortable with the word 'torture.' People in responsible positions just can't say it. See for yourself. It's very brief:It turns out that Krauthammer must be pretty smart because Antonin Scalia, an American Catholic Supreme Court Justice, agrees with him, who in turn is at least as smart as your average American Joe or Josephine, the majority of whom think pretty much as he does (we have evolved):
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate's torture report by saying it's hard to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened. Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.
Further proof of his ordinariness is his discovery of an argumentative tactic familiar to any full or half-witted college sophomore. In fact, it's the first one that occurs to many of my students when discussing the issue with me. You'll recognize it at once:Listen, I think it's very facile for people to say, 'Oh, torture is terrible.' You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it's an easy question? You think it's clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?
See? He even summons Jack Bauer to his aid:A year earlier, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Scalia invoked fictional TV counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer using torture to get terrorism suspects to reveal information that could help authorities foil an imminent attack. "Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so," he said. "So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."
I don't know, Mr. Catholic Justice. I guess it depends on whether you believe in what your Church teaches. But since we know that in his role as Justice the constitution trumps the Catechism, what about that former thing?Scalia also said that while there are U.S. laws against torture, nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists. "I don't know what article of the Constitution that would contravene," he said.
Well, you could try the Eighth Amendment. Or the Army Field Manual. But I suppose the retort to that will be that the amendment only applies to citizens and to those interred in American prisons, not to stateless terrorists who fall asleep at night counting not sheep but the headless bodies of infidel lambs to the slaughter. I was wondering though: if we are prohibited our use of a thing on American citizens, because of that thing's wickedness, does it cease to be wicked when used on a terrorist?
4 comments:
The questions recurs: What should we do with captured operatives of the Jihad? These do not count as uniformed soldiers, protected that honor extended to fellow soldiers even across the field of battle, which is codified in, e.g., our field manuals. They are beneath even spies and saboteurs, given that their targets are not military or industrial assets. They plot to slaughter schoolchildren, tourists, parliamentarians -- anyone unarmed and vulnerable to terror. So what should we do with these embodiments of treachery?
Perhaps the policy should be simple: Immediate execution or give up your comrades. Any dithering results in option A.
Still, the need for intelligence will never vanish. Should be disband the CIA and leave the whole matter to soldiers? I don't think that will do. A nation must have intelligence agents, spies, undercover operatives. What we need to restore is a culture of honor that implicitly forbids torture while still permitting calm, effective interrogation.
The questions recurs: What should we do with captured operatives of the Jihad?
Any number of things, I suppose. But don't torture them.
They are beneath even spies and saboteurs, given that their targets are not military or industrial assets. They plot to slaughter schoolchildren, tourists..etc.
If we try hard enough, we can probably reduce them to the level of pond scum. But it's irrelevant to a determination of what we are permitted to do.
Should we disband the CIA and leave the whole matter to soldiers?
I hope this question wasn't inspired by anything I said.
What we need to restore is a culture of honor that implicitly forbids torture.. Perhaps you meant explicitly? ...while still permitting calm, effective interrogation.
Unless you're trying to carve out a space in which torture would be allowed, that sentence doesn't really say anything. If you're in doubt about what to do with these "embodiments of treachery," you can probably answer your own question by first answering the question posed in the post's last sentence.
We definitely should not torture. Full agreement on that.
What I don't agree with is that status of Jihadist terror, in the panoply of methods of warfare, is "irrelevant to a determination of what we are permitted to do" to the agents and operative of Jihad. It distinguishes them from soldiers. It distinguishes them from spies. It distinguishes them from criminals.
We should not torture. Not even KSM. But what should we do?
So I am very much in doubt as to what to do with these scum. Opening the door to hostile interrogation may already be taking a too-perilous step. Even some of the more ambiguous methods used by the CIA -- sleep deprivation, physical contortion, ruthless psychological manipulation -- make me very nervous. One of the most villainous enemies of our country is subdued and bound; we need vital information from him . . . the temptation for abuse is enormous.
A policy of either battlefield execution or criminal prosecution may be our best option. A captain of Jihad who is captured in the course of actual operations may be executed on the spot. Otherwise, he must be turned over to the FBI and treated like a regular criminal.
The hell of all this is that history supplies abundant examples of societies' moral degeneration under pressure from the Jihad. Spain's brutal centuries of conflict with Islamic raiders attempting to encircle the Mediterranean via Gibraltar resulted a torture regime that corrupted the Church and the state, and inflicted unspeakable torments on Jews, Protestants, and Catholic dissenters in addition to Muslims. The Byzantines came to emulate Turkish savagery, and it bled into their own internal disputes, culminating in a hardening of hearts along theological lines. This kind of coarsening of mores is evident in the various polls suggesting that Americans yawn at torture.
Also, it is useful for the "religion of peace" narrative to conflate torture with uncompromising antipathy for the Jihad. Thus anyone who says, "The Islamic religion has a serious and ancient problem with its wicked doctrine of holy war," can be depicted as a little wannabe Dick Cheney.
"What I don’t agree with is that status of Jihadist terror, in the panoply of methods of warfare, is “irrelevant to a determination of what we are permitted to do” to the agents and operative of Jihad."
I don't see why. Whomever we're dealing with, our moral options are constrained. Read about the massacre at Malmedy (during the Battle of the Bulge) and consider whether battlefield execution could not have been used against the Germans. Criminal prosecution could have been conducted then and there. I don't see a great difference between Joachim Peiper and KSM.
Otherwise, he must be turned over to the FBI and treated like a regular criminal.
Again, I don't see why. I'm a big fan of Gitmo.
What prompted the post was witnessing the legion of Republican politicians and tv personalitites, many self-proclaimed Catholics, trumpeting their approval of EIT. It's disgusting.
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