One Last Tortuous Thought

Over at Capitalism Magazine, there is a Thomas Sowell column on torture, which is very good, but which is improved by the addition of a clarifying note on the nature of rights at the end by the editor.

Banning torture categorically by federal legislation takes on a new dimension in an era of international terrorist networks that may, within the lifetime of this generation, have nuclear weapons.

If a captured terrorist knows where a nuclear bomb has been planted in some American city, and when it is timed to go off, are millions of Americans to be allowed to be incinerated because we have become too squeamish to get that information out of him by whatever means are necessary?

What a price to pay for moral exhibitionism or political grandstanding!

Even in less extreme circumstances, and even if we don't intend to torture the captured terrorist, does that mean that we need to reduce our leverage by informing all terrorists around the world in advance that they can stonewall indefinitely when captured, without fear of that fate?

This is not only an era of international terrorist networks but also an era of runaway litigation and runaway judges. Do we really want a federal law that will enable captured terrorists to be able to take their cases to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals?

Regardless of what the free-wheeling judges in that unpredictable body may end up deciding, they are not likely to decide it soon. Anybody can call anything "torture" at virtually no cost to themselves but at huge costs in money and delay to the efforts to protect Americans from terrorism.

There is no penalty for false claims but potentially deadly consequences for letting international terrorists tie up our legal system by exercising rights granted to American citizens and now thoughtlessly extended to people who are not American citizens and who are bent on killing American citizens and destroying American society.*

To which the editors at Capitalism Magazine remind us:

Rights are inalienable. This means that they may not be alienated from the person who possesses them, i.e., they may not be given or taken away, i.e., they may not be morally infringed upon. For example, a man may violate your right to your property by taking it away from you, but your right to that property has not been alienated, i.e., you are in the right and the robber is in the wrong. Properly, governments do not grant rights, but protect them. For a fuller discussion see the Capitalism Visual Tour.

Sowell's points, with this important reservation, are well-taken, but do not go far enough. He is right that threat of torture might make some terrorists talk, but intelligence is not the only possible use for this military tactic. For example, torture, as Bob Tyrrell reminds us, was used to deter terrorism by American soldiers in World War I:

Even Americans have dealt brutally with Islamic terror, and to good effect. In 1911 in the Philippines, our Gen. John J. Pershing arrested several of the most brutal Islamic terrorists of the day. They were found guilty of capital crimes and shot, but not before the bullets used by the firing squad were dipped in pig fat, thus denying them according to the rule of Islam a soft landing in Heaven. Pershing, however, did allow one of the terrorists to escape so that he might report his chums' fate to their superiors. Islamic terrorism ended. [Update: I have subsequently learned that this story may not be true.]

I would also add the following thought. It is the same criminal-coddling left that eviscerated the ability of the criminal justice system to keep law-abiding Americans safe -- by keeping criminals off the streets and by deterring would-be criminals via threat of punishment -- who are coming out against torture.

And what is torture in the contexts that Sowell and Tyrrell bring up? A means of keeping civilians safe from foreign combatants -- by finding out what the ones who are still out are up to, by deterring would-be terrorists, and by deterring imprisoned terrorists from helping their fellows by witholding information. Interesting -- and potentially ominous -- parallels, I'd say.

-- CAV

Updates:

2-20-06: (1) Added update on Pershing. (2) Removed numerous bad HTML tags.