Here and There

• Discussing or Ignoring Thomas Pink’s Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae Rorate Caeli 01/05/15:

  One of the most difficult of the doctrinal points at issue between the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and the Holy See is the question of religious liberty. The Second Vatican Council’s teaching on this point in Dignitatis Humanae seems to be in clear opposition to the traditional teaching. In 2011 [Rorate Caeli] posted an intervention on the question by Prof. Thomas Pink, in which Pink proposed a reading of Dignitatis Humanae in accord with tradition. At the time, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society, Joseph Shaw, now a Rorate contributor, hailed Pink’s intervention as “truly important article,” and a blogger well acquainted with the SSPX called it a “a game-changing intervention,” that reframed the debate.

  Prof. Pink has since developed his argument further in a number of papers (most of which are available here). But what effect has Pink’s thesis actually had on the debate?

• Thomas Aquinas in China, by William Carroll. Public Discourse 12/11/14. "Thomas Aquinas’s commitment to the importance of reason and its universal role in defining what it means to be human makes him an attractive thinker for contemporary Chinese scholars."

• The Philosopher Who Defied Hitler: Q&A with Alice von Hildebrand, by Sean Salai, S.J. (and in America magazine, of all places!):

  Before her husband [Dietrich von Hildrebrand] died in 1977, she persuaded him to write an autobiographical account of his life. This memoir includes the story of his persecution under the Nazis, who had blacklisted him in 1921 and eventually forced him to flee Europe for the United States during World War II. A portion of the manuscript, newly compiled and translated into English by John Henry Crosby under the title “My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich," was published Oct. 21 by Image Books.

  On Oct. 21, I conducted the following email interview with Lady Alice on her career and on the newly translated autobiography of her husband ...

• 'First Things' vs. 'Communio', "Murrayites" and "MacIntyrians"; The Paradox of the "Catholic Libertarian" and Another Kind of Illiberal Catholicism -- A roundup of relevant reading in 2014 - Taking a look back at last year's skirmishes. The Catholic Church and the Liberal Tradition 12/20/14.

• Dr. Ed Peters on antinomianism, moved by the observation that Francis has appointed five more papal electors than Church law authorizes:

  Let me be clear: it does not make a fig’s worth of difference whether 120 or 125 cardinals vote in the next papal conclave, but it does make a fig’s worth of difference, I suggest, if yet another ecclesiastical rule, set out in a major legislative document using terminology indistinguishable from that which conveys many other considerably more important rules, is ignored because this leader or that doesn’t feel like abiding by it. We have processes to reform law in the Church; looking the other way isn’t one of them—at the very least, it’s a very dangerous way to change laws.

  Antinomianism has been a long time spreading, and we are going to be a long, long time repairing the damage it has done to the Church (and the State). Where to start, then, except with the first step: recognizing that antinomianism is the default setting today.

  (HT: Pertinacious Papist, see comments for further discussion).

• Torture: Historical and Ethical Perspectives Unam Catholicam Sanctitam brings refreshing analysis to the torture debate, renewed once more within the Catholic blogging world by the release of . Drawing upon prior historical research from Fr. Harrison, the authors to the following conclusion:

  Understanding these distinctions [between punitive torture, torture for purpose of extraction and extrajudicial torture] means that one could also simultaneously affirm the permissibility of certain kinds of torture (punitive) while uniformly condemning the practices of the CIA, which are extrajudicial.

  The long and short of it is that attempts to make blanket statements about torture qua torture are misguided and prone to end up in contradiction for the simple reason that Tradition does not address torture qua torture, just like we cannot make blanket statements about violence qua violence but only violence under a variety of categories (war, assault, corporal punishment, self-defense, etc.) In the eyes of tradition, putting a man on the rack to extract information, branding a convicted thief with a hot iron, flogging a prisoner, and executing a man in an extremely painful manner (e.g., burning) were all totally different things. To moderns, these are all simply "torture" without disinction, but the Tradition did not view it this way; their distinctions were real distinctions, not mere semantics, and if we hope to understand what the Tradition says to us, we have to accept its distinctions.

  Incidentally, the attempt to ground opposition to all forms of torture in "the dignity of the human person" was not an argument known to tradition and leads to various difficulties. As we have mentioned above in our discussion of Ad Extirpanda and Ad Consulta Vestra, it was only because objections to torture were not grounded in the dignity of the human person that any development of thought here was possible. The argument that all forms of torture are intrinsically evil because they are offenses against the human person is not tenable, at least if we take the Church's tradition seriously.

• Peter J. Leithart and Robert P. George spar over the proper understanding of religion as a "basic human good" worthy of being (freely) pursued - "Basic Goods" (First Things 8/27/14; Reply to Leithart (8/28/14), to which Dr. Mark Latkovick remarks:

  I simply want to add the point – moral rather than anthropological – that contrary to what Leithart implies, the “basic human goods” are not moral directives for choice. This is why, according to the “new natural law” theory (of Grisez, Finnis, Boyle, W.E. May, George, and others), moral principles and moral norms are necessary to guide our free choices so that we choose the various basic goods wisely. The latter are practical in nature, the former are moral in nature.

• How to be a conservative: a conversation with Roger Scruton, John Derbyshire. Prospect Magazine. 09/12/14.

• Raising the Tone: An Interview With Renowned Composer James MacMillan Regina (09/05/14). Mr. MacMillan was Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2000-2009 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie until 2013. He is also an outspoken critic of much contemporary Catholic church music, and recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Regina Magazine to discuss his point of view.

• "Ruined by books: My Top 10 Philosophy List", by Artur Rosman (Cosmos In The Lost).

• Lastly, OnePeterFive's "Drunk Catholic History" series covers my spirit of choice: bourbon.

Waterboarding is for Pansies.

'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing was.

'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.

'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.' [George Orwell's 1984 Part III, Chapter 5.]

Those familiar with Orwell's 1984 know what happens next. And if you haven't, here's the final scene of the movie adaptation (embedding disabled).

* * *

A scene which struck me, appropos of the following remarks from a recent exchange here at @ American Catholic:

"What John McCain suffered actually was torture. His bones were broken, for example. Induced panic isn’t torture."

"I don’t base the definition of torture on subjective determinations. Clearly it’s an issue of prudential judgment and it is certainly clear to me, someone who has severe panic attacks, that panic is not torture."

"If we cannot induce panic in our enemies with the intention of saving millions of lives, we can’t go to war at all. It’s as simple as that."

Waterboarding is for pansies. If Abū Zubaydah could withstand being waterboarded 83 times during August 2002, we're clearly not doing it right. Let's turn up the panic a few notches. Let's take it one step further. Let's put the fear of God almighty in these pathetic excuses for humanity.

Let's go Orwellian -- "Room 101" style.

Mayer vs. Thiessen

In Counterfactual: A Curious History of the CIA (New Yorker March 29, 2010), Jane Meyer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals) fact-checks Mark Thiessen's Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.

Fr. Brian Harrison: A Clarification on the Matter of Torture

Apropos of the ongoing coverage of the 'torture debate', particularly between various Catholic bloggers, I'd like to draw attention to the following clarification by Fr. Brian Harrison concerning his earlier remarks on the subject (HT: Mark Shea):

On this website and elsewhere, my obedience to the Holy Father and overall fidelity to the Church's magisterium was angrily and extensively called in question last week, following some telephoned comments I gave to the New York Times (February 27, 2010, p. A15). I am therefore very appreciative of the Christian and gentlemanly spirit Mark Shea has now shown in deleting those attacks and posting instead an apology and partial retraction. That struck me as especially fitting in this Lenten season in which we are exhorted to strive for humility, forgiveness and reconciliation.

In my brief response to the Times I expressed support for fellow-Catholic Marc Thiessen's analysis and evaluation of the carefully defined and limited waterboarding procedure which, some years ago, was approved by US government authorities and applied by the CIA in the interrogation of three confessed Al Qaeda terrorists. In his new book, Courting Disaster, Thiessen argues at length that this precise type of waterboarding (as distinct from other much harsher procedures like those highlighted in the far-from-impartial Wikipedia entry on this topic) does not legally or ethically constitute torture. I did not tell the Times reporter I supported everything Thiessen says in his book; in fact, I had already previously advised the latter in emails that I thought his references to "pacifism" were mistaken, as was the way he used the double effect principle. I also told him I thought his analysis confuses the object and the intention of a given act, as defined in our Catechism, ##1751-1752. Nevertheless, I regard as manifestly unjust the accusation that Thiessen is guilty of "consequentialism" in a sense that would involve dissent from any teachings of the Church's magisterium.

The central point of my present statement is as follows. A friend has pointed out to me today that in a speech of 6 September 2007 on Catholic prisons ministry, Pope Benedict XVI personally endorsed a statement against torture found in the 2005 Vatican Compendium of the Church's Social Teaching. Citing article 404 of this document, the Holy Father said, "In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture 'cannot be contravened under any circumstances'".

In my 2005 Living Tradition article on the development of Church teaching regarding torture and corporal punishment (cf. www.rtforum/lt/lt118.html) I had cited and discussed, in my section A13 and footnote 27, this article 404 of the Compendium, which is a publication of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. I pointed out then that this and other statements authored by the Commission itself - as distinct from the statements of Popes and Councils which it cites abundantly throughout the Compendium - does not possess magisterial authority; for the various Vatican commissions, unlike the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are not in themselves arms of the Church's magisterium (teaching authority).

However, having now become aware that Pope Benedict himself has personally reiterated this particular statement of the Compendium, I wish to state that I accept the Holy Father's judgement on this matter, and so would not defend any proposal, under any circumstances, to use torture for any purpose whatsoever - not even to gain potentially life-saving information from known terrorists. As a matter of fact, I never have expressed any positive personal approval of torture for that last-mentioned purpose (and much less for any other purpose). However, Mr. Shea has informed me that on this website many Catholics have attributed this to me in recent years, seeking to support their own willingness to justify the use of torture in the current war against terrorism. No, all I ever said is this: "My understanding would be that, given the present status quaestionis, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discssusion by Catholic theologians." (That's the last sentence of the aforesaid Living Tradition essay). As readers can see, I thus abstained from saying which side, if any, I would myself take in any such "legitimate discussion". (Frankly, I myself was uncertain about that.)

Nobody disputes that the CIA-approved waterboarding was a thoroughly nasty and frightening experience. However, I submit that whether or not it reached the point of torture does remain a seriously disputed question among reasonable and well-informed people. I think anyone who carefully studies with an open mind the available documentation and arguments on both sides, in regard to both the CIA and Navy SERE versions of waterboarding, will admit that ths is true, regardless of which side they personally come down on. Thiessen is not out on a limb of his own here: he can point, for instance, to the carefully considered witness of expert and independent (non-partisan) Justice Department lawyers to back up his contention that the CIA interrogators were not torturers (cf. p. 352). I will add no further comments on the waterboarding question now, except that I certainly intend to devote more study to this and related issues. However this will be my only statement on the matter in this forum. Indeed, I do not normally read this (or any other) blog, mainly because I think disputes in the blogosphere tend to generate more heat than light - especially since they so often involve intemperate, unsubstantiated, anonymous - and therefore cowardly - attacks on persons and reputations. Also, heat is often accompanied by smoke; so I hope that this present clarification of my own position at least clears the air somewhat.

Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D. Oblates of Wisdom Study Center Saint Louis, Missouri March 11, 2010

Responses to Mark Thiessen's "Catholic" defense of waterboarding

• Defender of Waterboarding Hears From Critics, by Mark Oppenheimer. New York Times February 26, 2010.

• Marc Thiessen, Double Effect, and the Torturer’s Dilemma, by Christopher O. Tollefsen. The Public Discourse (Witherspoon Institute) February 26, 2010.

  Muddled Moral Reasoning, by R.R. Reno. First Things' "First Thoughts" February 26, 2010.

Addendum to Last Week's Torture Post

My torture posts of last week merited a number of responses -- 100 comments and counting on First Things, and 292 comments on The American Catholic -- I had to pull the plug on the latter: it seemed all parties had reached the point of talking past each other.

However, I wanted to add a few closing remarks that I appended from the post(s):

The application of canon 915

Regarding Morning Minion (Vox Nova)'s plea for denying communion to those who defend waterboarding, DarwinCatholic muses

… it seems to me that the argument lacks some crucial context. When bishops have, in rare circumstances, denied abortion to notorious abortion supporters, it has been after long years of the Church clearly denying that one may, as a Catholic, support legal abortion. It has also been after the individual politician is warned by the bishop that he/she must change his views lest he be denied communion. The denial of communion is, at that point, a response to repeated and stubborn refusal to accept correction.

So in this case, an obvious first step (assuming that the Church does in fact consider the positions being taken by these people to be totally unacceptable) would be for some bishops to step forward, make it clear that these positions are morally unacceptable, and advise people that they must cease making these arguments lest they find themselves divided from the Church.

As Chris says, this is clearly a potential teaching moment. I don’t myself agree with the arguments that folks like Thiessien are making — though I’m not ready to say with confidence that it’s impossible for Catholics to make such arguments in good conscience. …

What MM does not seem fully cognizant of, unless I’m much misreading his intention with his post, is that there is a difference in Church discipline on these two issues in that the Church has already made it clear that it considers dissent on the question of legal abortion to be something which, in notorious cases, can and should be disciplined through denial of communion. He may not like that, but there it is. It is not yet, however, clear whether the topic of waterboarding is something over which the Church considers it appropriate to ban people from communion for dissent.

(Just to make it clear, the intent of my post was not so much to agree with Morning Minion -- I don't; and rather, I concur with Darwin that by all appearances, it is not likely or even applicable to apply Canon 915 to people like Thiessen at this time. (I also doubt the author of the Vox Nova post would relish the (in my mind, justifiable) application of the same to self-identified "pro-choice" Catholics. That said, I think Morning Minion would be in agreement with me.

Is there a debate over 'waterboarding'?

Morning Minion replies:

Despite Christopher’s assertion to the contrary, there is no real debate about whether waterboarding constitutes torture.

Like it or not, I do think there is a 'debate'. Various Catholic apologists and pundits believe waterboarding may very well not be torture, and not intrinsically evil. In the comments of my very post, the same arguments were marshaled that have been used time and again:

• Waterboarding as visited by SERE upon our own troops, or upon the Al Qaeda prisoners during interrogation, was, well, qualitatively different from the 'waterboarding' used by the Japanese and the Gestapo during World War II; by French during the Algerian war; by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's, or, for that matter, by U.S. troops during the Vietnam war and a Texas sheriff upon a prisoner in 1983 (the latter two cases resulting in a court martial and dishonerable discharge from the Army, and a 10 year prison sentence, respectively).

• Waterboarding was used with a different motive in mind than that which is condemned, say, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (“Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.”) The United States, to quote Father Harrison, employed such techniques "to extract vital information from, say, a captured and self-confessed Al Qaeda operative whose secret plans may be the required key for saving hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives from his next projected terrorist attack." Consequently, the Catechism's "failure to condemn torture for obtaining “information” look like a deliberate decision on the part of church authorities, rather than a mere oversight or coincidence." [NOTE: This is precisely one of those instances where it would be easy to put an end to years of rampant speculation, were the actual editors of the passages in question to clarify their intention].

• Waterboarding is defensible under "Just War" criteria -- This position is taken by several Catholic pundits (Deal Hudson, Fr. Robert Sirico and most recently Mark Thiessen on EWTN). Last year, a prominent advisor in the Reagan administration and popular evangelical Christian Gary Bauer employed the 'just war' criteria in defense of waterboarding as well.

I'm not necessarily stating the above arguments are persuasive -- but they are used just the same.

"It's only about waterboarding" vs. "100 deaths of detainees in U.S. custody"

Responding to the dismissal of one critic that the debate was "a waste of time", as it was "only" about three individuals who were waterboarded years ago, I drew attention to the report of the organization Human Rights First: Command’s Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan – billing itself as “comprehensive accounting of the U.S. government’s handling of the nearly 100 cases of detainees who have died in U.S. custody since 2002.”

My friend Donald McClarey and a few others justifiably took me to task, pointing out that only a portion of those 100 reported deaths were actually suspect.

I freely concede and acknowledge that the ‘100 detainee deaths under U.S. custody’ claim merits close scrutiny -- and likewise believe one should be skeptical of cases in which, for example, every one of those cases are attributed to torture and interrogation. At the same time I don't think they can be dismissed wholesale, either, as some here are inclined to do. Here are some further attempts to break down the list in question:

• Deaths of Detainees in the Custody of US Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan From 2002 to 2005 (12/05/06) [free signup to access required]
• Medical Investigations of Homicides of Prisoners of War in Iraq and Afghanistan (07/05/05) [free signup to access required]

I understand that not everything that occurred happened with the authoritative sanction from the top. (I certainly stand corrected if I gave that impression myself). I don't necessarily buy into the dominant "torture narrative" either -- the proposition that the Bush administration deliberately conspired to commit torture, and demanded the legal sanction to do so.

Rather, I find it more plausible that many of these officials at the top did not want to commit torture, and -- when they were approached for help on this matter by those conducting the actual interrogations -- were motivated to ascertain those techniques which they deemed were "within the lines". I'm not necessarily convinced they succeeded in doing so, but perhaps we can concede that they pursued this objective with honorable intentions, conscious of their responsibility to protect us from harm. (This is where I tend to take issue with Mark Shea: the speculation and imputation of dubious motives).

However, reading over the vast body of accounts and memos related to "enhanced interrogation" and detainee abuse, my sense is that even the lesser of the 'enhanced interrogation' techniques -- "environmental manipulation"; "sleep deprivation/adjustment"; "stress positions"; "20-hour interrogations", "controlled fear" -- that were signed off and formally approved of, were a contributing factor. Moreover, that our present methods of implementing this incarceration and interrogation is grossly dysfunctional. (See the Human Rights Watch report: "No Blood, No Foul": Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq).

On paper it sounds as if such 'enhanced interrogation' techniques were tightly regulated so as to prohibit any abuse; that such abuse would be easily recognized and quickly addressed -- enough that our former President could say with a straight face, and with full conviction: "we don't torture."

When in reality, at least according to one soldier's testimony:

... And within a couple hours a team of two JAG officers, JAG lawyers, came and gave us a couple hours slide show on why this is necessary, why this is legal, they're enemy combatants, they're not POWs, and so we can do all this stuff to them and so forth. Yeah, they came the very same day. . . . Oh, it was very fast. We [laughing] it was like they were ready. I mean they had this two hour slide show all prepared, and they came in and gave it to us and they stopped interrogations for it. It was a PowerPoint. It was on a computer laptop. . . .

Some of the slides were about the laws of war, the Geneva Convention, but it was kind of a starting-off point for them to kind of spout off, you know: why we don't have to follow these Geneva Convention articles and so forth. Like, you know, inhumane and degrading treatment, well, this specifically relates to POWs, so we don't have to do this. So basically, we can do inhumane and degrading treatment.

And then they went on to the actual treatment itself, what we were doing, what we'd signed off on and those types of things: cold water and nudity, strobe lights, loud music-that's not inhumane because they're able to rebound from it. And they claim no lasting mental effects or physical marks or anything, or permanent damage of any kind, so it's not inhumane. And then there was also [discussion about] degrading [treatment]. Like what's more degrading than being thrown completely naked in the middle of a mud pile, with everybody looking at you and spraying water on you. . . .

So while many of these actions are morally questionable, I think we need to evaluate these incidents on a case-by-case basis: distinguishing between those techniques which were "lawfully sanctioned" and formally signed off on by the Bush administration at the time (which may, nonetheless be gravely immoral) -- AND other blatant abuses which occurred as a result of on-the-spot and often rash decisions by the interrogators themselves -- not necessarily formally approved by the top, but nonetheless encouraged by the environment and the circumstances.

Which is to say: this is not one of those things where we can lay every incident that ever occurred at the feet of President Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and scream for a war crimes tribunal.

Where are the anti-torture conservatives?

It is very disconcerting to me -- as a self-identified 'Catholic-conservative' blogger since 2002 -- that the predominant sources I have to turn to for investigative reporting on this subject are leading liberal periodicals or organizations. It has been frequently pointed out -- I'm well aware of -- the liberal bias that is often present in these accounts, and am mindful to read with a critical eye.

I very much resent the fact that it is chiefly "liberals" who are raising a storm over this -- and that many conservatives seem to shrug it off. To quote the first response from one prominent "pro-life" critic of my post:

"Why is this such a tedious and ultimately meaningless argument? Because only 3 people were waterboarded. This is an issue that is being ginned up mostly by folks who hate Republicans and want desperately to change the debate from abortion."

Let's face it: it is this kind of knee-jerk response puts pro-lifers in a sorry light, and simply gives ready ammunition to Vox Nova's stereotype of "the hypocritical conservative."

Homework -- for those who care to read

Finally, here are some resources that may help evaluate "enhanced interrogation" -- again, with the disclaimer that these are typically understood to be 'liberal' sources. We have to read critically, but we can't wantonly dismiss for that reason either.

• Documents Released Under FOIA relating to the treatment of prisoners in detention centers overseas. (A project of the ACLU).
• ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody International Committee of the Red Cross, Regional Delegation for United States and Canada, February 14, 2007
• The Torture Archive is an ongoing project of the National Security Archive, is assembling at a single location documents from wide-ranging sources on United States government policy toward rendition, detainees, interrogation, and torture. (In light of the criticisms of liberal bias that accompanies various portrayals of the cases, it may help here to refer to the primary documents).
• Torturing Democracy - A project of the National Security Archive.
• The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Meyer. Yes, it's by a journalist for The New Yorker, so take with a grain of salt -- but it serves to date as a well-researched account of, well, how we got to where we are today with our use of "enhanced interrogation."

Related

• "Torture" and the Pro-Life Cause, by Austin Ruse. The Catholic Thing February 19, 2010.
• "Why I believe waterboarding prisoners is torture, and you should too" ZippyCatholic. February 18-20, 2010 (a series).

Catholic Advocacy of Torture: a "teaching moment" for the Catholic Bishops?

NOTE: The following cross-posted to The American Catholic and First Things].

Writing at Vox Nova, the author known as "Morning's Minion" has published a post calling for consistency in the application of canon 915 -- the denial of Holy Communion to those who "obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin" -- in this particular case, the public advocacy of abortion and torture. The post was occasioned by the recent appearance of Mark Thiessien on Raymond Arroyo's "The World Over", in which the duo lobbied vigorously in defense of waterboarding:

I think the analogy is clear. Arroyo and Thiessen are both Catholic public figures, and Arroyo in particular is a TV personality on a Catholic TV channel, making the scandal all the more grave. They are clearly “obstinately persevering” in support for an intrinsically evil act. Worse, they actually try to justify it on Catholic grounds. Thiessen has made it his life’s work to claim that some forms of torture are virtuous. Arroyo, again and again, invites defenders of torture onto his show, and instead of confronting them with clear Church teaching, voices his agreement. As [Archbishop Raymond] Burke says, this is “public conduct” that is gravely sinful. I would go further and argue that it is even more scandalous than support for legalized abortion. Most public supporters of abortion do not go on television extolling the great virtues of abortion for women and society. Their argument is more with how it should be treated under the law. But the Arroyo-Thiessen-Sirico cabal are (i) claiming to the faithful Catholics while (ii) making public pronouncements on the positive value of torture.

Catholic debate over torture (and/or what the Bush administration has termed "extreme interrogation") has been going strong for several years now. It's online manifestation initiated -- to my recollection -- with the publication of Mark Shea's article in Crisis, "Toying with Evil: May a Catholic Advocate Torture?" and subsequent discussion at Amy Welborn's, in March 2005. From time to time I've personally blogged on the various vollies and controversies between various camps as the debate has asserted itself, time and again, over half a decade (has it really been that long?)

That EWTN ("Eternal Word Television Network") has hosted two explicit defenses of waterboarding -- most recently by Thiessien, as well as Fr. Joseph Sirico of the Acton Institute, not to mention Q&A from Judy Brown of the American Life League questioning whether torture should be considered "intrinsically evil" -- does not surprise me in the least. As I noted recently, there has been open dispute as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture from many prominent Catholics, including editor Deal Hudson, Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Brian Harrison (in the pages of This Rock -- the flagship publication of Catholic Answers, the largest largest lay-run apostolates of Catholic apologetics and evangelization in the United States).

Little wonder that a Pew Forum survey examining "the religious dimensions of the torture debate" found many white Roman Catholics, along with most frequent churchgoers, affirming that the use of torture against terrorists is "sometimes" or "often" justifiable.

With respect to abortion, readers may recall a number of opportune moments during the 2008 presidential elections when Catholic bishops were obliged to speak out, publicly, forcefully and collectively, in correction of blatantly false presentations of Catholic teaching on abortion by Nancy Pelosi and (then) Senator Joseph Biden.

There have been numerous missed "teaching moments" for our bishops and the Catholic Church on the matter of torture.

The Great Catholic Blog Torture Debate resumes ...

• "Just WHAT, Exactly, Is Being 'Clarified'?", by Jay Anderson (Pro Ecclesia, Pro Familia, Pro Civitate January 27, 2010).
• Erin on Moral Clarity and Torture Creative Minority Report January 27, 2010).
• 'Tiresome' anti-torturers, by Todd M. Aglialoro. (InsideCatholic.com January 25, 2010).
• "Separating the wheat from the chaff in the Great Torture Debate …" (The American Catholic January 22nd, 2010) -- in which the question is posed: would Deal Hudson, Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers, and Fr. Neuhaus qualify for membership?

And while, for the record, I believe waterboarding is among the many wrongs commited by the Bush administration, and that other oft-cited incidents of detainee abuse (particuarly those resulting in death) should be investigated, and their perpetrators -- if guilty -- prosecuted, I concur with Jay Anderson:

... I am reluctant to join anything billing itself as the "Coalition for Clarity" for a number of reasons: (1) I am uncomfortable with the whole "Coalition for Fog"/"Coalition for Charity" dicotomy since I have faithful Catholic friends (Shea would label them "Faithful Conservative Catholics[TM]") who oppose torture, yet who have been unfairly accused of being for "fog" in the torture debates; (2) I'm not so sure that "clarity" is actually being sought, but rather see the effort as something more along the lines of "we're not like the the people who Shea has labeled as being 'for fog'"; and (3) nothing about the name overtly or otherwise indicates exactly what it is the group stands for.

So, I beg your indulgence while I offer this humble suggestion. How about you drop the cute euphemism, which is really nothing more than a play on Mark's overly theatrical name calling, and adopt a straightforward name that says what you REALLY mean and what you REALLY stand for? Something like ... I don't know ... "Catholics Against Torture"?

Lastly, my opinion of Mark Shea remains the same as it was last year, around this time (when, curiously enough, I found myself blogging on this same topic):

... that any legitimate disagreements with the Bush administration that could be mounted are obfuscated by his tendency to play fast and loose with the facts; imbue dubious motives to his critics, and substitute the virtual equivalent of sheer playground bullying for civil, rational and charitable debate -- which has, over the course of the past three years, alienated a number of erstwhile friends and readers within the Catholic online community who would have otherwise supported him.

That Shea is credited as both the inspiration for, and a participant of, 'The Coalition for Clarity' gives me a bad impression. Chalk it up to past history. (At the same time, I'm always open to surprises).

(Prior posts on the subject are compiled here).

A Brief Response to Mark Shea

Mark Shea hails my recent post on torture and Obama's executive orders:

After years and years of incredible nuance on behalf of Bush Administration torture policies ("Golly, what *is* torture anyway! It's all so confusing!"), after years of warm and sympathetic hearings for any and all arguments that, however tendentious, explain away the obvious teaching of the Church in a cloud of sophistry, after playing empathetic host all the usual suspect from the Ladies' Gossip Sewing Circle--shazam! ...

Having a day job (imagine that), I was initially going to compose a point-by-point rebuttal to Shea's latest.

Re-reading his rant, however, I won't even dignify it with that.

A sober perusal of my prior posts on the subject will discern the nature of my disagreement with Shea: that any legitimate disagreements with the Bush administration that could be mounted are obfuscated by his tendency to play fast and loose with the facts; imbue dubious motives to his critics, and substitute the virtual equivalent of sheer playground bullying for civil, rational and charitable debate -- which has, over the course of the past three years, alienated a number of erstwhile friends and readers within the Catholic online community who would have otherwise supported him.

For a single-post summary of my dispute with Mark Shea, see: "Rewarding Bad Behavior" Against The Grain June 14, 2007.

Prior relevant posts on the "torture debate"

• Questions about President Obama’s executive orders on the incarceration and interrogation of detainees January 25, 2009. While some are already hailing an end to the "gestapo-inspired 'enhanced interrogration [Sic] techniques'" of the Bush administration, a review of critical responses -- from the political "right" AND "left" -- raise serious questions about what is actually accomplished by President Obama's executive orders.
• "Torture in the News" December 23, 2009. A look at the report by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) on the treatment of detainees in U.S. Custody; Waterboarding; alternatives to 'aggressive interrogation'.
• Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin, Fr. Brian W. Harrison and the "Torture Debate" November 14, 2006. Fr. Harrison's argument on torture is practically identical to that of Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin. Yet, the latter is treated with respect while Harrison is repeatedly subject to ridicule as a "torture apologist". Curiously, both Shea, Akin and Harrison have contributed to the Catholic Apologetics organization Catholic Answers (a condensed version of Fr. Harrison's position was published in Catholic Answers' leading apologetics periodical This Rock Volume 17, Number 10 December 2006).
• For a comprehensive list of prior discussions of this topic on Against The Grain click here.

Questions about President Obama’s executive orders on the incarceration and interrogation of detainees

The big news of this week: Obama's first executive orders were not the reversal of the Mexico City Policy (as every major media source and not a few bloggers had predicted, and for which Obama waited until Friday) but the reversal of notable Bush administration's policies on the incarceration and interrogation of detainees:

President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.

And the orders bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.

However, while some cheerleaders for Obama are already hailing an end to the gestapo-inspired “enhanced interrogration [Sic] techniques”, a review of critical responses -- from the political "right" AND "left" -- suggests that the President's gesture is more symbolic and an exercise in moral posturing than anything else. It appears that serious questions remain about what is actually accomplished by President Obama's recent executive orders.

• Josh Gerstein of Politico says that Obama's pronouncements may sound "dramatic and unequivocal"; however, experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office. He lists some of the delays, caveats and loopholes that could limit the impact of Obama’s orders. For instance, his orders on interrogation mandate the establishment of an interagency commission which will have six months to examine whether to create “additional or different guidance” for non-military agencies such as the CIA. Likewise,

  A section of Obama’s order on Guantanamo entitled “Humane Standards of Confinement” orders Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to spend the next thirty days reviewing the current conditions at the Caribbean prison to make sure they’re legal and follow the Geneva Convention. It seems doubtful that Gates, who has been atop the chain of command for Guantanamo for more than two years, will suddenly find conditions that were just fine on Monday of this week are now flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention.

• The editors of the National Review also raise some serious objections, noting "reflect an emerging Obama style: What is said is more rhetorical than illuminating—and what is most important is left unsaid":

  Take Guantanamo Bay, the oft-maligned subject of the first order. In announcing the closure of the prison there, the president forcefully asserted that he was following through on a campaign commitment. But the order only promises that the facility will be closed within a year—a nonbinding deadline Obama could extend simply by signing another order. That’s not exactly the immediate shuttering his antiwar base was clamoring for, and such delay would be intolerable if Obama really believed Gitmo were the travesty he has portrayed it as.

  Moreover, the physical facility itself is of only symbolic importance. The underlying question is what to do with the detainees held there. On that, the executive orders tell us precious little.

• Likewise, Timothy Sandefur (Freespace) believes "What exactly [Obama's Gitmo order] means really remains to be seen":

  We obviously have to wait for further implementation of policies with regard to Guantanamo Bay, but it’s important to note just how limited this executive order really is. All that it promises to do is to close the particular facility at Guantanamo Bay. It does not in any way promise to end the policy of keeping detainees in prison camps for long periods of time without judicial review, habeas corpus, or opportunity to seek counsel. This Order sets up a two-step review process, by a committee entirely chosen by the President and subject only to his absolute authority, whose proceedings are not made public, at whose proceedings a detainee is not apparently entitled to counsel, and whose decisions appear to be subject to no appeal process whatsoever. Of course, the Order is quite explicit that it “does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States.”

  The committee is free to decide whether it is possible to transfer or release the individual, and, if not, whether it is “feasible” to prosecute such persons. If not, then the committee is not compelled to release such persons, or even to disclose what is to be done with such persons—instead, the committee will “select lawful means, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, for the disposition of such individuals.” Of course, what does “lawful means” actually refer to? The previous administration, of course, considered all of its means to be “lawful” also.

• In How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Sanctions Torture, Jeffrey S. Kaye revisits an earlier controversy involving the actual content of the "new and improved" Army Field Manual itself (FM 2-22.3), and the existence of a certain "Appendix M" -- reserved for use on "unlawful enemy combatants." -- and which

  includes instructions regarding solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and, in combination with other procedures included in the Army Field Manual, amounted to a re-introduction of the psychological torture techniques practiced at Guantanamo, and taught by Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE psychologists and other personnel at the Cuban base and elsewhere.

  A link to the Army Field Manual FM 2-22.3, "Human Intelligence Collector Operations.", referenced by Obama's Executive Order "ensuring lawful interrogations" as the standard criteria to be adhered to, is actually available online for your perusal. Circa September 6, 2006, it replaces Field Manual 34-52.

• In other news, the New York Times publishes the news that one such detainee -- released in 2007 and presumed "rehabilitated" -- has taken up his former career:

  The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

  The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

  His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

Update Thanks to Catholics and Enjoying It for the traffic to this post. See "A brief response to Mark Shea ...

Torture in the News

Practically buried in the news in the wake of the corruption scandal of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was the publication, on December 11, of a report by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- the culmination of an 18-month long investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody:

A major focus of the Committee’s investigation was the influence of Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training techniques on the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. SERE training is designed to teach our soldiers how to resist interrogation by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions and international law. During SERE training, U.S. troops --- in a controlled environment with great protections and caution --- are exposed to harsh techniques such as stress positions, forced nudity, use of fear, sleep deprivation, and until recently, the waterboard. The SERE techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody. The Committee’s investigation found, however, that senior officials in the U.S. government decided to use some of these harsh techniques against detainees based on deeply flawed interpretations of U.S. and international law.

The Committee concluded that the authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials was both a direct cause of detainee abuse and conveyed the message that it was okay to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody.

Chairman Levin said, “SERE training techniques were designed to give our troops a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist. The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.”

Senator McCain said, “The Committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody. These policies are wrong and must never be repeated.”

Further details:

• Executive Summary and Conclusions
• Part I of the Committee’s Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody - June 17, 2008
• Part II of the Committee’s Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody - September 25, 2008

The report is not without its share of critics -- On Friday, the Republican half of the allegedly "bipartisan" Senate Armed Forces Committee released a statement repudiating the McCain-Levin report and its conclusions, stating:

The latest inquiry into detainee treatment by the Senate Armed Services Committee breaks little new ground – merely reiterating the findings of at least 12 previous independent investigations, which reported that certain isolated and limited incidents of detainee abuse occurred in the handling of detainees in U.S. custody. The implication, however, that this abuse was the direct, necessary, or foreseeable result of policy decisions made by senior administration officials is false and without merit. It is counter-productive and potentially dangerous to our men and women in uniform to insinuate that illegal treatment of detainees resulted from official U.S. government policies. [Read the rest]

In Torturing the Evidence, the Editors of National Review responded to the Levin-McCain Report:

Prisoner abuse should not be taken lightly. There have been nearly two dozen detainee deaths reported, five of which are believed to have occurred during interrogations. But these episodes are endemic to warfare, not peculiar to the Bush era or a result of the president’s policies. Abuse is not to be tolerated — and it isn’t: dozens of U.S. military personnel have been disciplined and a number tried in courts-martial. There is a world of difference between relatively rare wrongdoing at the hands of a miniscule number of soldiers and a government program of torture.

The torture narrative is at odds with the facts. The U.S. does not have a policy of torturing captives, nor does it fail to abide by its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. When abuse has occurred, steps have been taken to punish the wrongdoers and rectify military practices. Those efforts will continue. A sober study would have made that clear. Congressional Democrats have instead found it expedient to smear the administration, the military, and the intelligence community for political purposes.

And as Jacob Laskin notes, [The Levin-McCain report] brings no new evidence to light, while its conclusions about the complicity in “torture” of Bush administration higher-ups have been discredited by a multitude of previous investigations:

[A] 2004 report on Abu Ghraib by Army Gen. Paul Kern found 44 incidents of abuse at the Iraqi prison, but absolved Rumsfeld and other administration officials from responsibility. An August 2004 investigation by former Secretary James Schlesinger concluded that Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials bore some indirect responsibility for the Abu Ghraib abuses, but also underscored that “there is no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military authorities.” In Guantanamo Bay, a 2005 Army Regulation report examining 24,000 interrogations conducted over a three-year period “found no evidence of torture or inhumane treatment” at Gitmo. One may reasonably take these investigations as proof that the Bush administration, whatever its mistakes, had no systematic policy to “torture” detainees.

Some quick observations:

Waterboarding

The most controversial SERE techniques adopted for use in interrogations is waterboarding - immobilizing the subject and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, so as to bring on the simulation of drowning.

Waterboarding is commonly accepted to be a form of physical torture. It was used by Japanese soldiers against American POWS during World War II; by French soldiers during the Algerian war, and was designated as illegal by U.S. generals during the Vietnam war.

Guantanamo commanders requested permission to use a "wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation" in a memo to the Pentagon. Sec. Rumsfeld denied permission in his now (in)famous reply of Dec. 2, 2002, stating that "as a matter of policy, Category III techniques [ ] was not warranted at this time. Our Armed Forces are trained to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint." However, in February 2008, CIA Director Michael Hayden testified before Congress that the CIA had used waterboarding on three high-ranking members of Al Qaeda in 2002-2003 (Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri), following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This week, Vice President Dick Cheney reasserted his approval of waterboarding in an interview with ABC News, and later, in an interview with the Washington Times, admitted that he was privy to the discussions which authorized the procedure and "signed off on it" -- prompting Senator Levin to call for an investigation.

The protest launched by some, "if that's the case, we have tortured members of our own armed forces (during SERE training)" is rather flimsy: does training our troops to endure waterboarding (with the expectation that they would be subjected to them by an enemy, and precisely that: an enemy not subject to the Geneva conventions) therefore legitimize our right to waterboard those we capture? -- I would say not.

"Aggressive Interrogation Techniques"

The predominant focus of the report, however, is not so much the rare use of waterboarding as the entire range of SERE tactics -- “stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli” -- which were approved by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in 2002 for use in special interrogations.

Do these "aggressive interrogation techniques" also amount to torture? -- This is something that the Levin-McCain report assumes, although it is a topic of much dispute, both in the general public as well as our Catholic online community (discussed below). For an explanation of the range techniques in question, see: What is Torture? A Primer on American interrogation.

Abu Ghraib - abuse of the policy, or the policy itself?

Another assumption is that what happened at Abu Ghraib was in fact not an abuse of policy but the policy of the United States itself. Catholic apologist Mark Shea, in characteristic hyperbole, asserts that "our troops, acting on the orders of the President of the United States, did what they were ordered to do".

However, as stated previously, numerous investigations into the abuses of Abu Ghraib have concluded otherwise. The investigation conducted by 2004 Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations headed by James R. Schlesinger concurred with the findings of several previous investigations that Abu Ghraib was the consequence of "serious leadership problems"; that techniques circulating from Guantanamo and Afghanistan "effective under controlled conditions ... became far more problematic when they migrated and were not properly safeguarded"; likewise "the abberant behavior of the nightshift in Cell Block 1 at Abu Ghraib would have been avoided with proper training, leadership and oversight." Ultimately, it concluded that "No approved procedures called for or allowed the kinds of abuse that in fact occurred. There is no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military authorities."

Consequently, one might conclude that Mark Shea is playing fast and loose with the facts when he posts a photo of a prisoner covered in excrement with the assertion that this was done "at the order of President Bush" or to characterize the legal opinions rendered by Bush's counsel as such "that the President has legitimate authority to order a child's testicles to be crushed if he sees fit". Remarks of this nature do nothing to advance the discussion.

* * *

In "Drawing a Line Against Torture" (First Things "On The Square" October 2004), Fr. Neuhaus remarked:

Torture as defined in international agreements to which the U.S. is party—outrages against human dignity, humiliation, degradation, mutilation, the threat of death—is never morally permissible. Admittedly, a measure of coercion, both physical and mental, is inevitably involved in most interrogation. The very fact of being in custody and under threat of punishment is a form of coercion. The task is to draw as bright a line as possible between such coercion and torture, and to forbid the latter absolutely. The uncompromisable principle is that it is always wrong to do evil in order that good may result. This principle is taught in numerous foundational texts of our civilization and is magisterially elaborated in the 1993 encyclical of John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor. We cannot ask God's blessing upon a course of action that entails the deliberate doing of evil. When something like Abu Ghraib happens, the appropriate response of patriotic Americans is one of deep sorrow, clear condemnation, and a firm resolution that it not happen again.

During October 2006 various members of the Catholic online community ("St. Blog's") engaged in a discussion, both on the theoretical level and that of practical policy, on these questions. Mark Shea has taken John Paul II's list of actions which were deemed "intrinsically evil" in Veritatis Splendour ("whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit") as officially settling the matter -- while other participants such as Catholic apologists Jimmy Akin, David Armstrong and Father Brian W. Harrison (in a contribution to Catholic Answers' The Church & Torture This Rock December 2006; as well as Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Moral Theology Living Tradition Sept. 2005), are of the opinion that the passage does not suffice as an absolute condemnation, and have labored to distinguish between what coercion and torture.

It is, by all appearances, a debate that is far from over. Most recently, another Catholic writer, Ross Douthat, In Thinking About Torture (The Atlantic, Dec. 16, 2008), Ross Douthat, penned his "own inarticulate mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt about the Bush Administration's interrogation policy" and "the sheer muddiness that surrounds my own thinking (such as it is) on the issue":

... the waterboarding of al Qaeda's high command, despite the controversy it's generated, is not in fact the biggest moral problem posed by the Bush Administration's approach to torture and interrogation. The biggest problem is the sheer scope of the physical abuse that was endorsed from on high - the way it was routinized, extended to an ever-larger pool of detainees, and delegated ever-further down the chain of command. Here I'm more comfortable saying straightforwardly that this should never have been allowed - that it should be considered impermissible as well as immoral, and that it should involve disgrace for those responsible, the Cheneys and Rumsfelds as well as the people who actually implemented the techniques that the Vice President's office promoted and the Secretary of Defense signed off on.

As Ross observes, the case made by some that the record of human rights violations which occurred under the watch of the Bush Administration -- such as the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the rendition of detainees to CIA "black sites" -- is somehow altogether different from what occurred in the past, crumbles in the light of historical examination. As he puts it:

... as far as the baseline of Bush Administration wrongdoing goes - the decision to take an ends-justify-the-means approach to the interrogation of terror suspects - I do think it needs to be placed in historical context, and treated as an example of the kind of consequentialism that's endemic to modern Presidencies (and to international affairs more generally), rather than as a distinct break with a more idealistic, human-rights-centric American past.

Douthat references New Yorker correspondent Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, "the battle within the Bush Administration over a new anti-terrorism policy of harsh interrogations, indefinite detentions without due process, extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons and warrantless wiretappings." (See Benjamin Wittes' "One Side Only" (Policy Review Oct/Nov 2008). According to Witte, Mayer's book is strongest when it adheres to the facts of the matter:

She brings a whole lot of information to the table, whether on details of extraordinary renditions, debates within the CIA over how to handle those it snatched around the world, bureaucratic infighting throughout the administration over interrogation and detention policy, or the extreme anxiety officials felt about how best to conduct the fight against the enemy. She reports on new documents; she has clearly had significant access to key players. What’s more, the texture of her reporting gets down and dirty enough to make phrases like “coercive interrogation” all too real. No decent person can read her account of the CIA’s interrogation program without something approaching nausea.

Unfortunately, says Witte, her efforts are marred by an attempt to fit the travails of the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11 into an all-too-simplistic moral narrative:

perhaps her biggest mistake is the one that resides in that subtitle and her related Manichean sense of the Bush administration as a hard-fought internal war between good and evil, between torturers and decent conservatives, between those who believe in the rule of law and those who do not, between practitioners of the old tried and true methods of fighting terrorists and those who eagerly chose to dwell in what Mayer’s arch-villain, Vice President Dick Cheney, once called “the dark side.”

As Witte demonstrates, this leads to questions of fairness in Mayer's casting of certain characters, and negligence to entertain evidence which would complicate her portrayal of Bush administration officials as the villains. This reminds me of DarwinCatholic's caution in a recent post to The American Catholic:

The most rewarding approach to history is to understand as sympathetically as possible the motivations of all those on both sides of major historical conflicts. Picking a “good guy” and “bad guy” and engaging in constant denunciations of specific acts is generally not condusive to this. Certainly, that does not mean that one may not judge the morality of historical events. But it does mean taking a less judgemental approach to history as a whole.

Simplistic narratives are generally the enemy of historical understanding.

* * *

Lastly, we should acknowledge that the use of "aggressive interrogation" techniques, even if licit, may not be necessary or warranted. Consider the recent testimony of Matthew Alexander (not his real name), a former professional interrogator who says he's still tortured by what he saw in Iraq:

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.

Dissatisfied with what he referred to as the "Guantanamo Bay Model" -- "Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them" -- the former senior interrogator at Iraq embarked on a different strategy:

I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

Over at Alternet, DemocracyNow's Amy Goodman interviews Alexander, going into greater detail of the strategy he employed in the interrogation which culminated in the disclosure of the whereabouts of Musab al-Zarqawi:

if you look at the way we do criminal interrogations in the United States, you can certainly tell a criminal suspect what are the consequences for a crime that they've committed, or that you suspect they've committed. So that, I think, is a permissible and ethical way to conduct an interrogation. However, it's not the most effective. The most-effective techniques are those that rely on rapport-building and relationship-building and then adapt that into the culture of the person that you're interrogating.

Alexander has also written a book entitled, How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. .

Torture and Religious Liberty

Torture and religious liberty, by Lawrence Swaim InFocus (Via Bill Cork):

Four former detainees at Guantanamo — Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith — are litigating in Rasul vs. Rumsfeld to hold government officials accountable for torture they endured while being held there. (All were found innocent of terrorist activity and released in 2004.) Represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the four British citizens first cited violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law, but these were thrown out by the district court because the alleged misconduct (beatings, painful shackling, interrogation at gunpoint, use of dogs, extreme temperatures and sleep deprivation) was seen as occurring during the "course of war." But allegations of deliberate attacks on religion were not so easily ignored and are currently being considered by an appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The former Gitmo detainees allege they were forced to shave their beards, were systematically interrupted while praying, denied the Qu’ran and prayer mats, made to pray with exposed genitals and forced to watch as the Qu’ran was thrown into a toilet bucket. Obviously, the only reason for such abuse would be to crush inmates psychologically by insulting their religion. Therefore it could, if proven, violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which seeks to protect religious expression.

Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin, Fr. Harrison and the "Torture Debate"

In my last post (What do I think about torture?) I tried to lay out my thoughts on the subject and my own opinions on various issues discussed in the previous roundups. Mark responded by stating:

My assessment of what you wrote, Chris, is pretty much the same as M.Z.'s and Zippy's.

I'm going to ask Mark to humor me one more time, as I'll endeavor to illustrate a source of much confusion and disappointment.

When I read Fr. Harrison (circa Sept. 2005):

[T]here remains the question [...] of torture inflicted not for any of the above purposes, but for extracting life-saving information from, say, a captured terrorist known to be participating in an attack that may take thousands of lives (the now-famous ?ticking bomb? scenario). As we have noted above, this possible use of torture is not mentioned in the Catechism.. . . My understanding would be that, given the present status question is, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians.

His speculations on this matter ring no different to me than those of Jimmy Akin (circa June 2004):

The Catechism's discussion of torture (CCC 2298) focuses significantly on the motive that is being pursued in different acts of torture. If it means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture . . .

For example, the Catechism's list of motives for torture does not mention the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives. It thus might turn out that it is not torture to twist a terrorist's arm behind him and demand that he tell you where he planted a bomb so that it can be defused and innocents can be saved. Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.

I would be disinclined to go the route of saying that torture is not always wrong. I think that the Church is pretty clearly indicating in its recent documents that it wants the word "torture" used in such a way that torture is always wrong. However, I don't think that the Magisterium has yet thoroughly worked out all the kinds of "hard case" situations one can imagine and whether they count as torture.

As Dave Armstrong suspected after his brief stint in the debate, the problem is semantics:

I've come to the conclusion that the debate on this comes down to mostly semantics and personal hostilities. I saw that early on when I realized that folks (including myself at first) were sloppy in differentiating the terms "torture" and "coercion" in various contexts, thus leading to further confusion (within the framework of cynicism and suspicion on both sides).

Fr. Harrison equates "torture" with "the infliction of severe pain." This leads him to conclude that "the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion" -- something which is incoherent, if torture is understood to be something that is intrinsically evil. (I'm well aware what "intrinsic" means and what it implies).

For Jimmy Akin, there are cases of torture (intrinsically evil). But there are also cases where coercion -- even coercion by "the infliction of severe pain" -- might be legitimate: "the use of physical pressure to obtain information needed to save innocent lives." Thus for Jimmy, "Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons," and "it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture."

I suppose if you posed the question to Fr. Harrison, he might agree with Jimmy Akin that there are acts which are "commonly described as torture" which are not, in fact, such. Jimmy Akin and Fr. Harrison may differ in their labeling, but they both seem to agree that in some cases (the "24" or "ticking bomb" scenario), coercion by physical force (to some degree) to obtain information for the purpose of saving innocent lives might be legitimate. Both appear to be mutually agreed that this remains an open topic of discussion among Catholic moral theologians (and Catholic apologists and bloggers to boot).

Now -- Mark / Zippy -- here is where I am confused:

1) You (Zippy) see Jimmy Akin's stance as problematic. At least I have that hunch, given your insistence:

At some point, no doubt at a different point for each individual, it is going to dawn on people that "torture is intrinsically evil" and "under these different circumstances the same act isn't torture and is therefore permissable" are mutually contradictory statements.

2)You (Mark), obviously see Fr. Harrison's position as problematic, yet refrain from confronting Jimmy Akin, and likewise insist "I agree with Zippy."

The confusion is compounded by the fact that the speculations of Tom McKenna -- with respect to the Catechism -- are hardly distinguishable from Jimmy's.

Jimmy's speculation that

"if [the Catechism] means us to understand that having a particular motive is necessary for an act to count as torture then it might turn out that some acts commonly described as torture are in fact not torture" . . . Certainly the kind of things that Jack Bauer may do on 24 are very different morally from the kinds of things that happened in Soviet prisons.

sounds much akin to these ears to Tom McKenna's speculation that:

. . . the Catechism, by its plain language, it is directed at the motivation of the conduct, not the content of the conduct. Hence it rejects torture intended to produce confessions, punish the guilty, etc. But the methods we use against our enemies (which again, are not "torture" under civil law) are not engaged in to induce confessions. We use these methods to secure actionable intelligence about our enemies. What Lyndie England did might arguably fall under this definition, since she was motivated by hatred or some other illegitimate motive. What a trained interrogator might uncover through controlled, judicious use of such methods is clearly not encompassed by this definition.

(Indeed, as deplorable as those abuses which occurred at Abu Ghraib were, what is put on display by the Fox Network in the television show 24 could be said to be far worse. However, I do not intend to spark a specific discussion of the precise acts used under "desparate circumstances" -- only the similarities of the arguments).

Here, again, I think Zippy would find both the reasoning of Jimmy and McKenna problematic. Yet Mark maintains a certain silence with respect to Jimmy, tears into McKenna, and insists to me that he "agrees with Zippy."

But consider what Mark has to say, for instance, about the use of the '24 scenario':

The particular guy I cite achieves his sleight of hand defense of torture by quoting the Catechism and attempting to say that what the Church *really* means is that torture which is not committed for a good purpose is bad, but that *good* torture (done by decent folk for a good end such as saving Keifer Sutherland in the Real World of "24") is okay.

The "particular guy" Mark cites is not Jimmy Akin but rather Tom McKenna -- who, if you follow the link, didn't even mention the television show.

Q: Would Mark's criticism of the "24 scenario" apply to Jimmy Akin?

* * *

In February 2006, Jimmy Akin offered the following clarification of his earlier remarks on torture in Mark's combox:

I believe that the Church has exercised its authentic magisterium in condemning the use of torture, and this cannot be safely ignored. The problem is that the Magisterium has not yet provided us with a precise description of what counts as torture, and thus it is presently a matter of debate whether particular practices are or are not torture.

I also would hold that, whatever torture is (when properly defined), it is intrinsically evil and thus cannot be justified by circumstances. The question is whether all things that are regarded by some as torture actually are torture. It may turn out that some things that some individuals call "torture" are not actually torture, just as some things that are commonly regarded as the sin of theft are not actually the sin of theft (e.g., taking food from a person who has plenty when you are starving and he will not sell it to you).

Again, I think Jimmy's argument fails to elude Zippy's criticism. If there are mitigating circumstances that would lead one to conclude that what appears as theft ISN'T theft, there might also be mitigating circumstances where "some things that some individuals call "torture" are not actually torture."

I don't think this kind of talk would wash with Zippy, whether it came from Akin or Harrison or Victor Morton or Tom McKenna. And to these ears, it all sounds pretty much the same.

Which is why I am puzzled by Mark's reluctance to offer any further response to Jimmy Akin than:

Thanks, Jimmy. That's pretty much what I took you to mean."

Proceeding to spend the rest of this year, in post after post, laying into Fr. Harrison, Victor Morton, Tom McKenna, Chris Fotos, et al. in his usual vitriolic style -- and insisting that his assessment of this position "is pretty much the same as Zippy's."

In a nutshell, this inconsistency in Mark's approach is a cause of much consternation by those who have been on the receiving end of Mark's deprecation at Catholic & Enjoying It.

* * * Jimmy Akin, you come late into this debate and I won't put upon you to read the reams of comments and heated exchanges between all of us. However, in your last post on the subject, you had mentioned "if folks are interested, I can try to offer further thoughts in the future."

Sorry to put you on the spot here, but I would be most appreciative were you to follow up with your own analysis of Fr. Harrison's two-part survey and conclusions drawn -- and perhaps clarify your own position on the topic: under what criteria would actions "commonly described as torture" not, in fact, be such?.

If I've mistakenly interpreted your remarks on this subject, let me know and I'll stand corrected. (Likewise to everybody else).

* * *

I'm going to cease blogging on this matter in pursuit of other topics (collective sigh of relief from the combox). There isn't much more I can add at this point. I do thank Zippy and company at Enchiridion Militis for engaging my comment, and I'll be following that discussion, as well as the other exchanges noted here.