The following was posted at the Huffington Post by Joshua Roman, a friend of Urbanagora:

New reports demonstrate that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played a pivotal role in the approval of "enhanced interrogation techniques," which are, by any definition but the Administration's, torture. This comes shortly after reports of Rice spending the last few weeks aggressively seeking to become Senator John McCain's running mate. Together, these reports beg the following question: How could John McCain ask Condi Rice to be his running mate, when were she to succeed him, the U.S. would almost certainly engage in torture?

McCain's opposition to torture is far more than a political position. His opposition is elemental. It is seared in his mind and scarred in his flesh - a public morality born of private tragedy.
Following the outcry over Abu Ghraib, Rice was approached by CIA officials and asked for her support for the continued use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." According to the ABC Report, "Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: 'This is your baby. Go do it.'"

These discussions took place at a meeting of the Principles Committee, which included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Then-Attorney General Ashcroft, who is hardly a humanitarian, was so troubled by these discussions he asked aloud after one meeting "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

But how will John McCain judge Condi Rice's remarks?

"This is your baby. Go do it."

McCain has said, "only by ensuring that the United States adheres to our international obligations and our deepest values can we maintain the moral credibility that is our greatest asset in the war on terror." How can he reconcile his statement with hers?

The answer may well be McCain sacrificing his morality to bolster his electability. We have already seen evidence of McCain picking political pragmatism over principle on this very issue. And his moral flexibility may give way if he buys into data like the new poll of NY state voters showing a McCain-Rice ticket ahead of a Democratic "Dream Ticket."

And the most important question of all: How will the Americans, and particularly independents, judge John McCain if he adds Rice to his ticket, despite her pivotal role in authorizing torture?

Labels: 2008, Condoleezza Rice, Joshua Roman, McCain, politics, republican politics, torture, Vice Presidential Candidates

Check out this short piece by Dahlia Lithwick of Slate on the Bush Administration's Dumbest Legal Arguments of the Year.

Labels: dirty republicans, jurisprudence, law, torture

Today's NY Times has an op-ed from Slavoj Zizek, who is a passionate, perhaps insane/brilliant, European philosopher. His op-ed, Knight of the Living Dead, takes a Kantian, absolutist position against torture. He says:

If there was one surprising aspect to this situation it has less to do with the confessions themselves than with the fact that for the first time in a great many years, torture was normalized — presented as something acceptable. The ethical consequences of it should worry us all…If someone were to advocate the legitimacy of rape, he would appear so ridiculous as to disqualify himself from any further consideration. And the same should hold for torture…This is why, in the end, the greatest victims of torture-as-usual are the rest of us, the informed public.

While his article is more palatable than I would normally expect from Zizek, I do have a few problems with it.

I lose a bit of respect for his argument when he makes the rape-torture analogy. If torture were as unequivocally repugnant to our moral system as rape, as he desires it to be, there would be no need for him to even write this article (I realize he is speaking in a normative sense). Still, analogizing a legitimately debatable issue to something undebatable appears more intellectually dishonest than I would expect from someone of Zizek’s caliber. Making claims that your position, in nearly any subject, is absolutely correct and that no viable critique can be made of it, lacks respect for pluralism and shows a lack of ability to maneuver your mind around an issue so as to see it from varied angles.

I have at least two problems with torture. First, the reliability of the information extracted. Second, the increased likelihood of our soldiers being tortured. My second objection is less of a concern because if terrorist are willing to wantonly kill us then they likely have little objection to torturing us, even if we were keeping their POW’s in the New York Hilton. But the reliability of information problem is also mitigated by synthesizing torture information with either other torture information or information collected in the field by our Intel.

Still, Zizek makes a good general point. Torture has become acceptable. But I question whether he actually investigated whether torture has always been acceptable to Western democracies. I suspect that the ability of Western governments and media to dehumanize and degrade opponents has made torture of foreign enemies a permanently acceptable means of attempting to defend against the barbarians. So, Zizek assumes the premise that torture offends our own values and thus has a ubiquitous, indefinable effect on our mores and psyche. But I question whether the opposite is true, that torture actually is a member of our collective mores and psyche.

While I would not advocate torture to the extent that Bush has practiced, I would advocate it in more limited circumstances (Notice that I say “advocate” rather than “condone”). I am also in favor of Prof. Alan Dershowitz’s proposal that torture requests be subjected to the court and warrant process. I don’t find modern, “civilized” torturing techniques, like waterboarding, to be a disproportionate response to terrorists who want to slaughter us like Jews (Here is a great video showing waterboarding done on a volunteer and an interview with Prof. Dershowitz).

There are two camps: utilitarians (pragmatists) and academics (Kantians). A predetermined absolutist approach to anything lacks the adaptability and nuance necessary to handle variable situations. Zizek is an academic and his ideas are beautiful on paper. Only academics understand the ideas of other academics. The problem is that there is not a single academic inside the terrorist network, therefore, there should not be a single academic inside Washington…Fortunately, there isn’t.

Labels: academia, Billy Joe Mills, torture