For the torture ban

We are great, but we are good

By James Fullmer
From the February 2006 Print Edition

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

I do not presume to think of myself as Tocqueville’s equal in eloquence, but let me offer this extension to his observation: We fight for America because she is good. And if America ceases to be good, even if we win every military conflict that comes our way, we will have lost the fight.

We are at war today, against a dangerous enemy that seeks not territorial gain or control of resources, but the very destruction of our civilization. The stakes are high, to put it lightly. For the sake of winning that war, both on and off the battlefield, conservatives and all patriotic Americans should support the ban on torture authored by Senator John McCain.

Whatever conservatives may think of McCain on other issues, on the war he has been constant as the Northern Star. He voted to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq and has never backed down from that position, throwing aside old rivalries and campaigning strongly for the president during the 2004 campaign. He supports the USA PATRIOT Act and most tellingly voted against a resolution asking Bush for a clear exit strategy from Iraq, a resolution that 41 of his more wobbly Republican colleagues supported. He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, soft on terror. So let’s talk about why patriotic, hawkish Americans should support the ban on torture.

Torture is morally reprehensible and entirely contrary to our principles as a nation. Do the terrorists deserve anything better than torture? Probably not, and my belief is that they will get it when they meet the God in whose name they so feverishly murder. But do our soldiers and interrogators deserve something more than to be torturers? Absolutely. This amendment applies the regulations of the Army Field Manual to all interrogations of Department of Defense detainees. It provides much needed clarity to a murky situation, and it is supported by many high-ranking military officials for that very reason.

Some might argue that principles are all well and good, but that winning is more important. Even if that is true, let’s discuss if torture really does help us win. First, there is the question of the effectiveness of torture. This is a subject McCain knows quite well, as he spent five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. After a particularly brutal torture session, he and his fellow prisoners signed confessions to war crimes that they did not commit. Most prisoners will say anything to make the pain stop, even if they don’t know anything useful.

And think of who our enemies are. What makes us think that a terrorist prepared to kill innocent civilians will solemnly swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth after a little pain? Torture is against military regulations specifically because it is not as effective as other forms of interrogation.

Now let’s talk about how allowing torture could, in fact, hurt us in our war against radical Islam. We cannot win this war without the support of the so-called “Arab Street.” I’m not talking about the suicide bombers and the jihadists; there is absolutely nothing we can or indeed should do to try to appease them. I’m talking about the ordinary Iraqis and Lebanese and Egyptians, people all across the Middle East, who share our values and yearn for freedom and democracy. If they even perceive us as being torturers, being Mullah-like, they will stick with the devil they know, and we will have lost their critical support. This is not appeasement. This is common sense.

Make no mistake: I do not believe that the prisoner abuse a dictatorship makes, nor do I think that Arab public opinion should trump our strategic interests if the two are in conflict. And yet, because the two are indeed connected, the distinction between us and our enemies must be made as clear as possible. We don’t win this war when our battles win the day. We win it when our ideals win. We fight not just for the flag but for the principles for which it has stood for 230 years, and for which it still stands today.

What of the so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario — the situation in which we have in our custody a terrorist who has information about an imminent threat? In such a situation, if an interrogator was convinced he could gain accurate information from torture, he should indeed do whatever he can to save lives.

And yet, to take such a step, the interrogator must be certain of what he is doing. So certain, in fact, that he is willing to sacrifice his career, and perform an illegality. But it must remain an illegality, a reprehension to our nature of state. It is asking a great deal, I know, but necessary evils are evils nonetheless, and while we may commit them we cannot condone them. We make rules that sometimes must be broken. But we still make rules.

In every war this nation has ever fought, our soldiers and non-military personnel have fought with what Abraham Lincoln called the “faith that right makes might.” We will win this war, because our cause is just. Let us keep it that way. We have never sacrificed our fundamental principles out of fear, and we need not do so now.

Click here to read the counterpoint.

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