Tim’s Torture Matrix
President Obama’s executive order calling for the closing of Gitmo has given elements of our political class opportunity to let the world know how much they dislike violence, particularly torture. I say good for them. Violence is bad. So is torture.
In fact I think all sorts of things are terrible. Incarceration is horrible. Handcuffs are horrible. Getting shot is horrible. Nevertheless, under certain circumstances, these horrible things are less horrible than the alternative.
Searching a car is normally unacceptable unless you have probable cause and a warrant. Blowing up a building is normally unacceptable, unless it is reasonably believed to be full of enemy combatants. Shooting a man is normally unacceptable, unless that man is pointing a gun at you.
Following this logic then, there would be a set of circumstances where digging into a human being with a number two pencil might be acceptable if you reasonably believed there was a ticking atom bomb and the dude knew where it was hidden.
Try this little exercise. You are an FBI agent, and in your custody is somebody you reasonably believe has information that will allow the authorities to thwart an act that will lead to loss of life. Now, consider the grid below. Print this page out and put an “X” in the blank boxes where you think the level of pain or discomfort is outweighed by of the level of casualties. Take your time.
Torture Matrix
The point of this exercise is to put a price tag on principle. Liberals who rush to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in opposition of this dreadful thing or that usually do so without a skin in the game. Their moral stance is cheap, because they will never feel the responsibility for the pain and suffering that will be the result of following those principles.
George Orwell wrote to Rudyard Kipling and said “Those who abjure violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” The Bush administration was at least willing to thoughtfully consider the conditions under which normally unacceptable behavior might be acceptable. At best, the liberals who now have a champion for their comfortable outrage are demonstrating an easy moral superiority. They rest comfortably in the abstract world and the soft glow of their peers and the press, a sweet-scented world secured by sterner men.
Those selfsame folk will never face the possibility of a smoking crater full of corpses on their conscience, for they are not the kind to do that rough work. Those who do the violent work that is the unfortunate price of freedom need the clear-eyed review of those on whose behalf they serve, but so far they have nothing but silly preening and fawning. The nation needs more than that.
