Tuesday 17^th May 2005

Legalising Torture

Dear Editor

RE: The 'yes' case can outweigh the 'no' - May 17, 2005

Bagaric and Clarke are hawking a specious argument advocating legalised torture that finely demonstrates their own scatty moral judgements.

Before dismissing the unjustified claims within this cloud of nonsense, I warn the reader to note the implications of the boldest claim made by the authors - a claim that is both dangerous and unaddressed in their opinion piece: that "many distorted moral judgements that we as a community continue to make" are based upon "absolutist and short-sighted rhetoric."

If that aint rhetorical bluster, I don't know what is.

They go on to state the obvious - that despite torture being prohibited, it is known to happen. Unfortunately, this high school debating technique of making lame observations to ease the audience into accepting a yet to be justified claim doesn't qualify as an argument. A return to this observation later in the piece only leads to an even more absurd claim that legalised torture will reduce the instances of torture. This apparently counters the first of three counter-arguments to legal torture.

The authors claim that torture is permissible (assuming one judges rightly) in the case where an innocent life will be saved. No reason is given. Instead, yet another claim is slipped in: that the justification for the first claim manifests from our "inviolable right to self defence." Manifests?! Why would they expect people to accept a little Deus ex Machina in this context, when it is rarely forgiven in fiction.

Now that their unjustified exposition of claims is complete, they begin their counter-arguments to the three main counter-arguments to legalising torture.

The first counter-argument is discussed above.

The second counter-argument they deal with is that torture will dehumanise society as a whole. No, they insist, in fact the reverse is true: torture will humanise society! Then the authors feel compelled to advise us that society is in need o serious ethical rewiring if it elects in favour the interests of wrongdoers over those of the innocent." A non requiter in reverse - now you don't see that every day.

And by the way, it may be more correct to speak of the person as a suspect of direct wrong doing or as suspect having knowledge of others' wrong doings.

The third counter-argument to be knocked down to a vertical posture by the authors is that torturing may prove futile because an innocent life was never at risk. This proves to be the height of their logical thinking powers. I quite like their use of the illustration about a hostage taker pointing an empty gun at the hostage and then getting their brains blown out by the tactical response group as a technique for rendering a sense of relevance to the argument. Unfortunately, to demonstrate (which they don't) that it is permissible to shoot the hostage-taker has no bearing on torture use.

Now we reach the point where Bagaric and Clarke attempt a linkage to recent events before indulging in a little metaphysics as to whether a choice between torturing and saving an innocent life happens in reality.

They agree that the high profile cases of torture by US military personnel were reprehensible. Not because the treatment of the prisoners was unacceptable but because "there was no evidence of an immediate risk to the life of an innocent person."

Am I meant to be reassured by the fact that senior academics in law appear to demonstrate ignorance on a range of matters such as, but not limited to: internationally agreed methods of effective interrogation; the risk of greater abuse of power by agents of government under a regime of such laws; the efficacy of properly implemented intelligence services; and, the power of logical thinking?

A person who uses torture must risk their own freedom if found out regardless of outcome of the use of torture.

If innocent lives are indeed saved, then gaol is nothing for the torturer. Remember, we send soldiers to protect our innocent lives by being ready to give up their own lives in the face of real threat.

If the torture proves futile and innocent lives are lost or the suspect indeed knows nothing, then the torturer deserves ignominy for being incompetent and for ruining another human being needlessly.

End Of Rant.

(C)opyright Sylvano Lucchetti.