Post-Class Taxi to the Dark Side

After watching the first 2/3 of the movie and reading the posts on the subject, a couple things stick out in my mind. These are (1) the different arguments that have been used regarding whether torture should be legal but regulated, illegal but condoned, or illegal and forbidden; and (2) the bureaucratic/corporate tendency to make it impossible to place blame. I'll take them one at a time.

After the first couple readings I found myself mostly siding with Bowden, that torture should be illegal but covered up by the government if the ends justify the means. I now think that was a very naive point of view. It has become obvious (as it should have been from the start) that this places far too much trust in the army, government and hierarchy to make unregulated decisions without anything resembling procedural or legal justice. Therefore, I can no longer ascribe to Bowden's doctrine of keeping torture illegal but condoning it when it is justified.

Yet, I do not fully buy into either Krauthammer's or Sullivan's opinion either. I actually think either philosophy could work if implimented correctly. I think Sullivan's outright ban idea is the most practicable one and the one least likely to be abused, but if Krauthammer's was regulated properly and its restrictions imposed rigidly it could also be just. I do not think the United States' problem was whether or not torture was legal or illegal. I think the problem was the shameful secrecy and ambigiuty they higher-ups created over the issue. This shroud of confusion functioned to convey a mixed message to soldiers on the field while effectively absolving commanders and officials from responsibility. If the leaders had taken a clear stance and either banned torture or strictly regulated and defined its use, abuses would have been far less frequent, in my opinion. (I will add that of these options I prefer an outright ban, because it lends itself toward the least abuse and because torture, even if it is necessary, is grossly inhumane and one should always err on the side of being more, rather than less, humane).

This leads naturally to the second part of my argument, that the structure of massive bureaucracies like our government and military makes it easy for officials to shift blame and attention to those at the bottom level. It is obvious that the ambiguity in defining "torture" and the constant sideways references to it (such as Cheney's "the gloves need to come off" and "we'll need to get our hands dirty" and "we need to operate on the dark side") created an atmosphere of confusion for lower officers and soldiers on the ground. Therefore, the lawyers and statesmen who were working so hard to muddle the definition and limits of "torture" are responsible for the conditions that inspired soldiers to torture.

Of course, none of the higher-ups will take responsibility for it. It is exceedingly likely that they created the ambiguity for just this reason: it would produce the results they wanted while allowing themselves to quickly shift all blame to the individuals at the bottom level--which they did immediately after Abu Ghraib. In my opinion, this is why Thompson's model of individual responsibility held at all levels of the decision-making process, especially his contention that officials should be aware of bureaucratic mechanisms that produce predictable results, is the best one. Surely those who directly performed torture are guilty, but so are all those who deliberately created an atmosphere of confusion to prod those individuals in that direction.

It is not surprising to me that many "democracies"--i.e. republics--engage in "clean" torture (which in my mind is just as hideous as "dirty" torture), because most of them have hierarchical systems that allow officials to shift and avoid blame. Ban it or regulate it, the problem of torture can never be adequately addressed until officials stop deliberately confusing the issue and institute clear, concrete regulations, whatever they are.