A rchive Date
[ 09-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/leishman.html
Torture wrong under any circumstances
By RORY LEISHMAN - London Free Press
March 9, 2003
The recent capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attack on the United States, has given new urgency to the question: Is it ever right to use torture as a means of attempting to extract information from a prisoner about an imminent terrorist attack?
For theologically orthodox Christians, the answer is clear and unambiguous: It is never right to torture a prisoner.
Jesus, after all, did not just admonish his followers to love and do what they think is right under the circumstances. Rather, he told the young man who asked, "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" that he should abide by the divine law enshrined in the Ten Commandments handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.
For Christians, the meaning of these commandments have been spelled out in the historic teachings of the church. For example, with reference to, "Thou shalt not kill," the Westminster Larger Catechism of 1648 stipulates that this commandment does not preclude killing in self-defence or a just war, but absolutely forbids not just murder, but also "striking, wounding (and) neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preserving life."
Likewise, the 1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that this commandment forbids an array of evils ranging from murder to suicide, terrorism and, "torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents or satisfy hatred."
Some ethicists take the contrary view that torture might justifiably be inflicted upon an evil doer like Mohammed as a means of safeguarding millions of innocent persons from a devastating terrorist attack. Are such utilitarian arguments correct? Or did The Apostle Paul have reason to affirm in his letter to the Romans that it is never right to do wrong?
The great Dr. Samuel Johnson addressed this issue in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In this moral treatise wrapped in a novel, Johnson contended: "Man cannot so far know the connexion of causes and events, as that he may venture to do wrong in order to do right."
That maxim surely applies to torture of Mohammed. By committing or sanctioning this evil, the CIA would do incalculable harm to the ideals and reputation of the United States government. Moreover, the agency could never be sure that torture would yield any useful information.
Johnson warned: "When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to find a nearer way to good, by overleaping the settled boundaries of right and wrong, we cannot be happy even by success, because we cannot escape the consciousness of our fault; but, if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably embittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him; who feels at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexation of calamity which guilt has brought upon him?"
As it is, under the laws of the United States, it's a criminal offence punishable by up to 20 years in prison for a CIA agent or anyone else to torture a prisoner. Likewise, Israel, Canada and all other Western democratic countries have enacted laws that absolutely forbid torture.
The same cannot be said for most Muslim countries. In a chilling report last Tuesday, The New York Times quoted a senior Moroccan intelligence official as confessing that, in interrogating a suspect, "I am allowed to use all means in my possession. We break them, yes. And when they are weakened, they realize that they are wrong."
With regard to the questioning of Mohammad, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer has said, "The standard for any type of interrogation of somebody in American custody is to be humane." Fleischer emphasized: "That is precisely what has been happening and exactly what will happen."
That statement is fine as far as it goes. But it fails to scotch persistent rumours that the CIA and FBI sometimes connive in the torture of al-Qaida suspects by the security services of allied Muslim nations in the war on terror.
To set the record straight, the White House would do well to underline that all agents of the United States government must not only refrain from torture, but also eschew any complicity in this evil practice by other governments.
Write Rory at The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1 or fax 519-667-4528 or E-mail.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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