Still Stupid, Still Wrong, Still Immoral
Why the death of Osama Bin Laden shouldn't change our views about torture—or of the people who approved it.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Slate.com
Posted Wednesday, May 4, 2011, at 6:22 PM ET
Do we have to have another big national debate about torture? Really, do we have to? Headlines like this one, in the New York Times no less, inform us that the Osama Bin Laden raid has "revived" the arguments over the "value of torture." That's strange, because until now, the only people "reviving" the debate over the wonders of torture were the same people whose names are actually on the torture memos or who were in the room when torture methods were being approved. This does not constitute a "debate." A better term would be self-serving propaganda.
Still, the subject of illegally torturing people for information appears to be open for discussion yet again. So before I rehearse my argument, allow me to suggest that the only reason we are having this discussion at all is because we have tortured people. That's the problem with doing stupid things: You spend the rest of your life trying to convince yourself that maybe they weren't so stupid after all. Had we not water-boarded prisoners eight years ago, nobody would be making the argument that water-boarding "worked." The reason you don't order up torture in the first place is that once you do, it stays on the menu for years.
Given that—as yet—nobody really knows for certain whether evidence extracted from prisoners through torture ultimately led to the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden, a lot of the folks jabbering about torture are talking in similarly pointless rhetorical circles. What they are saying chiefly amounts to variations upon the same assertion: "We tortured people. Later, we caught Bin Laden. Ergo, torture works."
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In fact, the most interesting torture debates of the past few days have actually come from people debating themselves on the truth behind this simple syllogism. See, for instance, Donald Rumsfeld of Tuesday morning debating Donald Rumsfeld of Tuesday night on whether torture led to the capture of Bin Laden.
(More here.)
By Dahlia Lithwick
Slate.com
Posted Wednesday, May 4, 2011, at 6:22 PM ET
Do we have to have another big national debate about torture? Really, do we have to? Headlines like this one, in the New York Times no less, inform us that the Osama Bin Laden raid has "revived" the arguments over the "value of torture." That's strange, because until now, the only people "reviving" the debate over the wonders of torture were the same people whose names are actually on the torture memos or who were in the room when torture methods were being approved. This does not constitute a "debate." A better term would be self-serving propaganda.
Still, the subject of illegally torturing people for information appears to be open for discussion yet again. So before I rehearse my argument, allow me to suggest that the only reason we are having this discussion at all is because we have tortured people. That's the problem with doing stupid things: You spend the rest of your life trying to convince yourself that maybe they weren't so stupid after all. Had we not water-boarded prisoners eight years ago, nobody would be making the argument that water-boarding "worked." The reason you don't order up torture in the first place is that once you do, it stays on the menu for years.
Given that—as yet—nobody really knows for certain whether evidence extracted from prisoners through torture ultimately led to the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden, a lot of the folks jabbering about torture are talking in similarly pointless rhetorical circles. What they are saying chiefly amounts to variations upon the same assertion: "We tortured people. Later, we caught Bin Laden. Ergo, torture works."
Advertisement
In fact, the most interesting torture debates of the past few days have actually come from people debating themselves on the truth behind this simple syllogism. See, for instance, Donald Rumsfeld of Tuesday morning debating Donald Rumsfeld of Tuesday night on whether torture led to the capture of Bin Laden.
(More here.)
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