Australians for torture ?
According to this SMH report, two Australian academics are advocating the legalisation of torture, including the torture of innocent people who [their interrogators believe] might have useful information. If the SMH report is to be believed, the supporting ‘argument’ is just our old (and multiply-refuted) friend, the ‘ticking-bomb’ scenario. (Here’s my response, and here’s a fairly typical instance of the way the ticking-bomb scenario is used in practice to justify routine and prolonged torture[1].
I find it difficult to believe that this report can be accurate and I certainly hope it isn’t. The views of Bagaric and Clarke are spelt out in this opinion piece, which is as lame and morally obtuse as you might expect. A quick Google reveals that Bagaric is a Part-time member, Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal, which is certainly inappropriate for someone who apparently advocates sticking needles under the fingernails of innocent suspects. At least, that was what this Age report said when I checked it an hour ago, but the relevant passage has now disappeared.
Update More from Ken Parish, Tim Dunlop and Benambra. I haven’t seen any comment yet from pro-war bloggers, but I hope at least some of them will repudiate this terrible proposal.
fn1. This was a case in Israel, but I don’t want to discuss the Israel-Palestine issue here. Any comments on this issue, or on the fact that there are other countries that do far worse, and don’t have courts to appeal to, will be deleted.
Katz, I’d agree with both of your posts above. I think Ian is right about the precedents, but I’m not confident the Constitutional issues were adequately addressed at the time. During time of conflict, great deference seems to be given to the military and the executive. Presidents also like to interpret the powers of the Commander in Chief very broadly (the Constitution is frustratingly silent). If Congress is controlled by the President’s party, Congress generally won’t challenge him. When Congress is controlled by the President’s opposition, there’s more of an effort to reign him in.
Don’t have much hope that the current Congress will try to reign in Bush.
Too true RSL,
But the War Powers Act (1973) does provide a somewhat hopeful precedent for congressional willpower.
The War Powers Act requires the president to inform Congress within two days of military action. Armed forces must be removed within sixty to ninety days unless Congress approves of the action or declares war.
At the very least the War Powers Act establishes the constitutionality of curbing the authority of the Commander-in-Chief to act unilaterally.
One point that seems to be missing in all (most?) of this thread is the very basis of our (and most civilisations’) moral/ethical/legal system is the imperative “Do as you will be done by”. Do the people advocating, if not torture, then forceful interrogation ever consider how they would like to be treated should they find themselves in that situation?
Katz
The War Powers Act was one of the best things Congress has ever passed in my opinion. Something like that is now needed to define (and limit) the Executive’s powers in detaining and interrogating terrorists and to create some kind of due process for these types of detentions.
Unfortunately, I fear we will need a political climate similar to that in 1973 before any such legislation could get through Congress. In 1973, the prestige of the President and the military were at a near all-time low, thanks to Nixon and Vietnam, and we had Democrats controlling Congress and a Republican President.
I guess if we want to be optimistic, though, we can say that the one good thing about Iraq’s looking more and more like a disaster of Vietnam-like proportions is that the political climate may resemble that of 1973 sooner than we think!
RSL,
I’m afraid that Pollyanna might shake her head in sad wonderment at the optimism of foks who foresee a Vietnam-magnitude correction arising from Iraq. There are several reasons for this:
The Bush Administration has been quite effective at tailoring their policies and their rhetoric to events on the ground in Iraq.
The media have been well-and-truly neutralised.
There is a ready-made exit strategy of pointing to the establishment of a democratically elected government as a marker of success.
There is no draft.
There is no sizeable pre-existing counter-cultural movement in the US which can be energised by the war.
The Republicans have constructed for themselves a more-or-less permanent large minority of congressional support by careful grooming of the Christian Right. Therefore, it will be almost impossible for a Republican-unfriendly Bill to pass into law over the veto of a Republican president.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. The latest entries at Fafblog provide an unanswerable, if not correct, rebuttal to any torture nay-saying. Just see the postings about omelettes/eggs with its “idea of an omelette”, and the one about the calculus of freedom.