I guess my point about the supposed immorality of torture in the context of war is that it ignores the realities of what war is. While there have been some wars where the fighting only stopped when the opposing forces were annhilated and one side was left firmly in control of the landscape, there have been many other wars that were more psychological in nature. I’m thinking specifically of the aerial wars favored by Clinton with regards to Bosnia and Iraq but also even a medieval seige of some fortress city in Europe. In both scenarios the goal was not to obliterate the opposing forces but instead it was to inflict a lot of psychological damage on the them so as to bend their will to the goals of the attackers. It could be argued pretty effectively that a member of the Republican Guard who had to spend several sleepless nights in a bunker while American planes bombed the holy heck out of Baghdad was subject to a sort of psychological torture. Likewise the residents of Paris in 886 who watched the bodies of dead prisoners flung over the walls of their city by Viking invaders were subject to a sort of psychological torture as well.

While there is a physical component to techniques like waterboarding, it seems the psychological torment is the real by-product. I wonder if it is really so different than the experience of someone who experiences the general horrors of war. Do we put torture on a forbidden shelf because of its solo nature? Where is the line?

I think this sentence of yours hits it right on the head, especially since you make it as a positive rather than normative statement:

“This will not be a conversation about whether or not certain techniques are torture, but instead it will be about whether or not torture is okay. Otherwise the govt can just keep inventing new methods to stay one step ahead of the people who define various techniques.”

I’m not sure how much I agree with the rest of your point. I think the amount of sleep deprivation were talking about here is troubling for any number of reasons. That said, the role of morality in war is a topic that is well worth exploring, and on which I’ve got some conflicted views. I’m not sure whether I’d agree, but I could see a plausible argument to be made that having “rules of war” makes war more likely.

To quote another famous Civil War general: “It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.” Of course, I’d counter that the horrors of WWI did little to stop WWII. But it’s a worthwhile question.

The trouble is that for the vast majority of people, the issue isn’t whether torture is moral or immoral, but whether the results it provides warrant the breach of morality. For some of us (and I include myself in that group), the morality breach is never or almost never worth it.

I think ultimately you are right. This will not be a conversation about whether or not certain techniques are torture, but instead it will be about whether or not torture is okay. Otherwise the govt can just keep inventing new methods to stay one step ahead of the people who define various techniques (personally i find sleep deprivation to be a-ok, but suprisingly i’m less okay with zapping someone’s testicles with a cattle prod.)

As for the statement of morality, I find it hard to reconcile the immorality of torture with the morality of war in general. If we accept that sometimes the only way to deal with some people is to blow people up with precision-guided bombs, why do we draw another line in opposition to making them think they are drowning even though they really aren’t?

But then again, I’ve never really understood the ‘rules of war’ mentality. As Stonewall Jackson said, “If it were up to me, it would be the black flag. That is the quickest way to bring wars to a conclusion.”

That said, if the case is clearly made to the public – and increasingly it is – that the torture memos, etc. led directly to Abu Ghraib and the torture of truly innocent prisoners, then it’s a different story altogether. It’s entirely possible that the tide has finally turned with the release of these memos; but given how long some of us have been talking about this, I think I have good reason to be skeptical.

And if the American people don’t believe that – well, that’s their problem and America’s. But I think you may be underestimating them. When even someone on Fox is saying he it doesn’t matter if it works or not, it’s still wrong, there’s a good chance others feel similarly. We need to strengthen that sentiment, not undermine it. It’s true that torture isn’t effective, but this is not a policy question, it is a moral one. If we make it a policy question, we implicitly condone it.

The trouble is that for the vast majority of people, the issue isn’t whether torture is moral or immoral, but whether the results it provides warrant the breach of morality.

Which is how we ended up torturing people.
The laws and prohibitions on torture we have are not the result of abstract theorising, they are the embodiment of what our fathers learnt from the mistakes and crimes of the past. The question now is what should we learn from this and bequeath to our children.

I live in the UK so I do not have as good a feel for the values and attitudes of average Americans as of Europeans. Torture may be a marginal concern to average Americans, I do not know, but to average Europeans it is an absolute anathema even in the UK and Ireland which were not occupied by the Nazis.

I wish I could believe that Bush agonised over difficult moral dilemmas, but I just don’t. It is not that he was evil, he was just not capable of grappling with complexity.

Roque said:

… if it’s true, then I put that in the category of Polk’s “American blood was spilled on American soil” speech that got us to declare war on Mexico. In other words, if true, Bush was pushing a lie to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Hold that thought.
“In the summer of 2002, Zarqawi settled in northern Iraq”.
Where he was a fugitive from the Saddam regime, not an accomplice of it.

As I write this I am listening to a radio report of the collapsing Pakistani state. Do we now think it was a good idea to support all those military dictatorships? The problems we face today are often direct consequences of the moral compromises we made yesteryear. Do we now think that Rumsfeld and Cheney were wise to support Islamic fundamentalists in the 1980’s? If it is justified for us to use torture, why would it not be justified for the Pakistani government to do so? Do we think that will help to re-establish civil society, a democratic culture and the rule of law in Pakistan? Or do we not care?
Which is of course how we got here.

Torture has been a pervasive feature of political life since time immemorial. Look back at the history of it and how it is still used today. How much of it has been ‘good’ torture? If its use is legitimised in by any state (particularly one as overwhelmingly dominant as the US) then humanity loses a powerful moral weapon against tyrants everywhere.
Is the fraction gain, assuming there is one, really worth the loss of moral authority?

We are making the world our children will live in.
What sort of world do we want it to be?