How dare they? A creepy Christmas tale

Here’s a good corrective to the idea that torture is sometimes-maybe-possibly justified because Bad People might want to set off bombs and kill Innocent Americans.


Private first class Bowe Bergdahl is the only known U.S. serviceman being held captive by the Taliban. He was videotaped reading a typical propaganda statement condemning the foreign occupation of Afghanistan.

The Associated Press report on this Christmas gift from the Taliban duly notes that the Geneva Conventions ‘bar the use of detainees for propaganda purposes and prohibit signatories from putting captured military personnel on display’.

Oh yes, the Geneva Conventions! I remember those!

When you rewrite the rules and dump the agreements that emerged from the world’s horror over the Nazi atrocities, the unthinkable becomes everyday. Unfortunately for the enthusiasts for Guantánmo and waterboarding (a.k.a ‘a little water up the nose’), it’s not so easy to make sure that the other guy is always the one on the receiving end.

The element of the torture debate that has remained strangely absent is exactly this: why should we think that if we do stuff like that that to them, then they won’t do it to us? And when we have publicly declared that it’s justifiable because we have to protect our security at all costs, what is the moral argument to be marshaled when others copy our reasoning?

The Taliban may not have not resorted to placing Pfc. Bergdahl in a darkened room, blasting Arabic music in his ears 24 hours a day, tying him up in stress positions in freezing cells, pissing on Bibles in front of him, making him masturbate in front of female guards, beating him senseless or subjecting him to 20-hour interrogations without permitting him to sleep more than two hours at a stretch.

On the other hand, if they did do all that, they might argue that he could still have ‘actionable intelligence’ to reveal to them about U.S. troop movements in their country. If they did so and were ever to be prosecuted, they could quote George W. Bush to explain their behavior to an appreciative Afghan judge. ‘We were only doing everything we could to protect innocent Afghan civilians from ticking time-bombs launched by drone attacks on their villages’, they could say.

Those who purport to care about the fate of U.S. military personnel should think twice before bragging about the great utility of torture to get bad guys to cough up the facts. Sooner or later, young kids from Idaho are going to pay the price.