4. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) - In an episode of TNG series, the crew captures a Borg and creates a virus that once implanted in their captive will wipe out the entire Borg collective. But because TNG could be over-the-top stupid, Picard chooses not to commit “genocide.” The point of my digression? Simple… Mark this moment as the point when, without even knowing it, TNG became the perfect example of how selfish, do-gooder leftism is a recipe for never-ending war and countless miseries. Ever after, every murder and assimilation at the hands of the Borg is solely the fault of Captain Jean-Luc Picard — including those lost in this superb entry that ranks as one of the all-time best time travel movies.
So refusing to commit genocide is selfish, do-gooder leftism that results in never-ending war and countless miseries. Oh, and sufficient proof can be found, naturally of course, in how a fictional television/movie series plays out. Got it. Well, I'll stick to genocide at first, but I think this is the writer's attempt to justify torture by proxy, so I'll touch on that also.
As for genocide, it is hard to find anyone who supports it as a policy (I certainly do not), but in all humility, perhaps the writer is correct. There are several hard to reconcile sections in the Old Testament where entire cities and societies were fully destroyed or treated with complete cruelty. I choose to interpret these passages in the light of the New Testament. The Old Testament displays God upholding his covenant with the nation of Israel, and these actions, as cruel as they seem to our modern sensibilities, are justified in protecting the survival of God's people, a struggling population often outnumbered and with a tenuous hold on its Promised Land. This "ends justifies" the means approach changes immediately with the new covenant in Christ outlined in the New Testament. Hebrews 8 discusses the new Israel prophesied in Jeremiah 31, and several New Testament passages, including the famous "neither Greek nor Jew" of Galatians 3:28 bear out a new nation of God's people united by faith and blood in Christ instead of genealogical bloodlines. The binding commands under this new covenant is to Love (act in the best interest of) God and our fellow man, which would seem to preclude genocide or torture.
I state this position humbly, since although this is clear to me, there are certainly those (Christians and non-believers) that would strongly disagree or find this interpretation a cop out to the brutality of the Old Testament.
Divorcing ethics and religion from the issue for a moment and speaking solely from a military strategy standpoint, going "Old Testament" and completely annihilating an enemy has proven historically much more successful than tip-toeing through the minefield tulips. If war is determined by a country as a necessary response (an altogether different topic for another post), then there is no advantage in trying to make it look pretty. War is ugly, war is destruction, war is death, so a "go big or go home" strategy is not only appropriate, but much more effective in shortening the length of war an providing a decisive outcome.
In this context, genocide may be a topic more open to debate than torture. Back to the silver screen, there are all those movies where a character is embittered and set on a path of self-destruction solely to avenge harm brought on to their family or friends. How many young Muslim boys are witnessing the torture maiming, or murder of their fathers, brothers, and schoolmates at the hands of an enemy empire, and how many will follow in the steps of those characters in Once Upon a Time in the West, The Princess Bride, and countless others stories? Torture, above the inherent crime, may be considered one of the best forms of enemy recruitment and entrenchment, making it strategically, as well as morally, wrong.
As for the use of the term "leftist" to define those who may oppose torture, here is a written statement from a "leftist" politician that Republicans hate:
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the [Geneva] Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
-Ronald Reagan
6 comments:
Post 1 of 2
In the Borg scenario, you have an entire race of beings built around assimilating or killing their enemies. They offer no opportunity for peaceful coexistence, and they are repeatedly on the attack. They represent a constant threat to any other being whom they encounter, and they are probably more powerful. So, Picard is given a choice that would end this constant threat but finds self-preservation not to be worth it. He gains nothing from this decision, and many lives are lost because of it.
An analogous debate faces us over "torture," "GITMO," and other words that have become more notable for their negative connotations than their practical place in a larger effort to defend the country. Here, however, our enemy isn't an entire race but instead a dedicated group of people who interpret their religious faith as grounds to convert or wipe us out. This enemy lacked a clear country to attack and easily crossed borders. Meanwhile, they have shown no interest in tolerance or any other step that would suggest they could coexist with their brethren of other faiths. Their means of pursuing their faith are the most violent and cruel of any means of available to them. Notably, one detainee would use dull blades to prolong the agony of those he beheaded. They have ruthless killed thousands.
In the past, you could declare war on a country, and we did against the Afghan regime that gave them refuge. Still, we were left with no practical means of how to handle those whom we captured. We certainly could not send them back to their home countries because those countries did not exist or did not want them. Trying them in this country presented practical legal and safety difficulties. For instance, can U.S. laws really govern conduct committed entirely in another country? If you fiddle with them enough intellectually, maybe they can, but it certainly isn't a clean answer. That's why countries have historically had a different rule for conduct on the battlefiled than conduct in a civil, domestic environment. That reasoning is why the framers allowed certain basic rights to be suspended domestically only in clear states of emergency. Practically, why bring these people to the United States where they might escape or eventually be set free? Our choice was to kill them immediately or improvise with something else. Our ethics prevailed and we created GITMO to feed, clothe, and maintain them while not letting them return to the battlefield to kill more Americans. For a long time, the detainees were outside the grasp of the U.S. court system, too, by virtue of being at GITMO. And, the nation was safe after 9-11.
Post 2 of 2
"Torture" is a separate issue that I am afraid to address because it would distract from my key point made here: That we are faced with an enemy dedicated to killing us and that there is no common ground that can resolve their dispute with us. Notably, the "torture memos" actually concluded that the conduct applied was not torture! Still, that truth seems to have been lost in this firestorm. Charles Krauthammer noted that there are two instances in which torture may occur: (1) the ticking timebomb when you know that something bad is about to happen and (2) you know that something is in the works but you aren't yet in the ticking timebomb situation. Most people favor torture in Scenario (1) as part of any step to preserve our lives against a foe who clearly has no regard for our own. Scenario (2) is where you have some reasonable disagreement over exploring alternatives.
The notion that we are stirring up unrest in the Muslim world is also misguided in its present context. We aren't randomly picking up people and taking them to Cuba. With several exceptions, these are people who have been captured on the battlefield shooting at Americans. The fact that fathers are being taken to GITMO under such circumstances leads me to believe that the children already had those predispositions. And, when we let these people out of GITMO, we end up capturing many of them again trying to kill Americans.
GITMO, alleged torture, and the whole war on terror were designed and as steps to save our lives against an enemy that would do anything to attain its goals. I have yet to hear a practical alternative for how the Bush administration should have dealt with these difficult issues, and certainly, the Obama administration is unsure of itself here. Faced with my self-preservation against an enemy who offers no opportunity to compromise, and I will fight to the end rather than concede. I will not give up my faith to appease them, and my life that they want to take is worth fighting for.
Sometimes, someone has to do the dirty work to make sure that we’re all safe, and we castigate them as beneath our evolved morals and sensibilities. In fiction, that’s Jack Bauer in “24” or “Section 31” in your Star Trek example. In real life, it’s the people who decided how to respond to 9-11.
But please tell how you really feel ;-)
JCB, just a couple of points in response to your comments, and I hope to leave the torture issue alone in the future.
#1 = Torture is deontologically wrong. No exception. Even with a ticking time bomb. Should one find them self in a decision where torturing one may save any number of people, can a morally/legally wrong action be justified from a consequential standpoint? Perhaps. Regardless, the act itself does not become legal or right. In deciding to use torture for a greater good, you also must accept the legal and moral consequences of those actions.
As an example, if I steal food to feed my family, I am both breaking the law and doing something morally wrong, but if the alternative is hunger or death to my family, I may make a decision to steal. If I get caught stealing, I will face the consequences. Even if I am the President, and hire a team of lawyers to say that not paying for 3 loaves of bread is the threshold for theft, whereas I only took 2 loaves, this does not make it legally or certainly not morally the case.
If one takes any action, they must be prepared to take full responsibility for that action. That used to be a hallmark belief of conservatives.
#2 - I don't like your assertion that "our enemy is a dedicated group of people who interpret their religious faith as grounds to convert or wipe us out." Maybe we agree, but I would phrase it as "America has enemies who use religion as a cover and recruitment tool to wage political, financial, and cultural warfare that exists apart from religious belief." Much like our Christian Bible, texts from the Qur'an have been used for hundreds of years as justification for violent action. By a wide margin, the leaders sincere religiousity is suspect at best, but cloaking themselves in religiously extremist language provides powerful advantages. As a playwright once said "The pen is mightier than the sword."
I am not trying to be dismissive of the threats these enemy groups present, and am not saying that Islamic thought isn't without its problems. I am saying if we recognize and respond to the political and cultural aims of these groups, much progress can be made toward neutralizing the growth and power of these extremist groups. And as I stated in the original post, torture then becomes counterproductive to such a strategy.
#1:
I have no problem torturing in Scenario No. 1. The survival of potential thousands is at stake, and the torture subject is the person who would cause this harm.
Importantly, the enhanced interrogation techniques were not torture, as concluded by the memos. It was not simply a matter of the administration finding hired guns to reach a favorable conclusion. There is no definitively "right" legal answer here, but the Bush administration lawyers found strong and persuasive support for their position. This distinction becomes very important in addressing your Jean Valjean example of stealing bread, which is clearly a crime. Notably, however, I would further counter your example by noting that we have created alternative structures to provide food to those who cannot feed themselves. Even the contrarian Obama administration is struggling with how to handle captured terrorists.
#2:
I see little value in parsing the actual motivations of terrorists. They are subset of Muslims and represent themselves as proponents of Islam. Along the way, they murder Jews and Christians solely because of their faiths. Meanwhile, they speak in terms of making the entire world subject to Islamic law. When their actions so closely align with their rhetoric, it's dangerous to assume that their agenda is unknown.
Well, we'll agree to disagree.
I am impressed and would like to know how attorneys can determine with certainty that depriving someone of sleep for 11 days as opposed to 12 is within the ethical threshold of torture, and outline this stance by way of pure jurisprudence.
I also find it interesting how you advocate considering the ticking time bomb motivation of those using "enhanced interrogation techniques", yet are uninterested in considering the motivations behind the "enhanced religious techniques" employed by enemy groups.
As for the first point, the memos provide sufficient explanation, in my opinion. :)
As for your second point, I think you miss thesis on the ticking timebomb example entirely. There, within a matter of hours, people will die unless information is obtained. I fully support torture to obtain information to save lives in that example.
"Enhanced religious techniques" don't exist, and that's the first time I have ever heard that term. Maybe you can find an example, but it certainly is not in the mainstream of intellectual thought that I've seen. My point is simply that the terrorists have pretty effectively matched their rhetoric and their actions with heinous murders across the globe. Acting as though they have some other motivation comes across as ignoring the obvious.
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