Looking back at World War I, Winston Churchill was moved to write: "When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility." The "Great War" was a laboratory for human killing, with the first widespread use of mechanized weapons of mass murder like the machine gun and the tank. Accompanying these weapons were inventions such as aerial bombardment and poison gas. Yet, the war saw neither side institutionalize the use of torture. In the end, that was about all Churchill could claim on behalf of military restraint.
The question of torture arises once again in the context of the War on Terror and has been brought to public controversy with the amendment to the current Defense Authorization Bill sponsored by Senator John McCain. The measure, which would render illegal all "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatments of prisoners under U.S. control, passed by a vote of 90-9 in the full Senate. President George W. Bush had threatened to veto the legislation, if it were to be passed by the House of Representatives. On December 15, the White House announced that it would back the McCain amendment.
Nevertheless, public debate over the amendment – and the issues of coercion and torture – will not end with the conclusion of this political drama, nor should it. This is a vital issue of great moral consequence, and this debate should not be allowed to slip from public view. All citizens bear responsibility to be informed and engaged concerning this question.
This debate was advanced through the contribution of columnist Charles Krauthammer and his article, "The Truth About Torture," published in the December 5, 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard. Krauthammer, a morally serious man, presents a morally serious argument against the McCain amendment – going so far as to suggest that McCain's position is something less than intellectually honest.
Both men deserve careful attention. Sen. John McCain is a man whose courage was demonstrated through the awful experience of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese regime. Torture and the treatment of prisoners of war is no hypothetical issue to this senator. At the same time, Charles Krauthammer also deserves a respectful hearing. His background in medicine and the law, coupled with his own public courage and service as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, summons our attention.
Krauthammer argues that "there is no denying the monstrous evil that is any form of torture," nor "how corrupting it can be for the individuals and society that practice it." But, he also believes that there are exceptions to this rule, and that these exceptions demand the discipline of rules.
"The problem with the McCain amendment," he asserts, "is that once you have gone public with a blanket ban on all forms of coercion, it is going to be very difficult to publicly carve out exceptions." Krauthammer then faults the Bush administration for "having attempted such a codification with the kind of secrecy, lack of coherence, and lack of strict enforcement that led us to the McCain reaction."
Without doubt, the scandals associated with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the advice offered in the memo prepared by John Loo of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice have caused considerable embarrassment to the United States. Are we a people who would allow torture to be used as an instrument of state power? More to the point, has the War on Terror changed the rules?
Krauthammer argues that the rules have indeed changed. Captured terrorists, he argues, are not soldiers captured in a conflict of arms, but something more like dangerous criminals who break the laws of war by killing and abusing civilians "for a living." Therefore, they are entitled "to nothing" in terms of rights, having forfeited such claims by becoming terrorists. And yet, he does not actually believe that they are entitled to nothing, for he would not sanction any and all uses of coercion and torture, just those that fit his description of exceptional cases.
