« Republicans For Obama | Main | The New Left 2.0 » The Seamless Garment of Death01 May 2007 02:36 pm Memo to Dean Barnett: If you're looking to persuade me that torture is a necessary wartime evil, it's probably not a good idea to start by comparing it to abortion and the firebombing of Dresden. Just a thought. (Mark Shea has a more thorough response to Barnett's weird exercise in right-wing relativism.) Comments (51)
The abortion analogy is awkward, for sure. But the problem is the post isn't aimed at you - it's aimed at the knee-jerk reaction (primarily from the left) that says that anything we do to detainees amounts to torture (e.g. Dick "Gulag" Durbin). Of course, in this respect Barnett's post is misguided, since most such critics are simply making politically expedient charges, not thoughtful moral ones, in which case asking them to put themselves in his shoes (so to speak) is pointless. However, you and Shea still manage to skate over the question of what is permissible: Barnett is correct that the "debate", such as it is, over torture or coercive interrogation is infuriating because nobody supplies a definition of torture. Waterboarding is apparently the most effective method that we've used, but we also use it in training our own soldiers. If you want to argue that we shouldn't be doing either, make that case, please. But this business of sanctimoniously decrying torture without defining what you mean by torture is not helpful. Shea's post assumes that it's so very straightforward to draw the line between attacking civilians and attacking soldiers, but it's not. How does one figure out whether using methods that are less destructive will prolong the war, and thus produce more deaths than using more destructive methods (such as atomic bombs), which will end the war sooner? It's easy to pronounce that a country should never resort to torture when one hasn't defined what contitutes torture. It's also pointless. 
"How does one figure out whether using methods that are less destructive will prolong the war, and thus produce more deaths than using more destructive methods (such as atomic bombs), which will end the war sooner?" Drawn to its ultimate conclusion, nuking the world is the best aid we can create to peace, as all warfare will stop immediately. Yes, it is hyperbole. More importantly, Shea (and Douthat) are writing from the assumption that certain behaviors are never justifiable, even if good may come from it. As to the "waterboarding" issue: our soldiers are waterboarded as a pyschological preparation (like the rough talk they receive in 'boot camp'). They know no harm will come to them. Prisoners are waterboarded to make them panic. They don't know how long it will keep up. So the two are incomparable. Histor
"How does one figure out whether using methods that are less destructive will prolong the war, and thus produce more deaths than using more destructive methods (such as atomic bombs), which will end the war sooner?" Drawn to its ultimate conclusion, nuking the world is the best aid we can create to peace, as all warfare will stop immediately. Yes, it is hyperbole. More importantly, Shea (and Douthat) are writing from the assumption that certain behaviors are never justifiable, even if good may come from it. As to the "waterboarding" issue: our soldiers are waterboarded as a pyschological preparation (like the rough talk they receive in 'boot camp'). They know no harm will come to them. Prisoners are waterboarded to make them panic. They don't know how long it will keep up. So the two are incomparable. Histor
Juli Loesch Wiley coined the term "seamless shroud" back in the '80s as a description of the views of those who attempted to provide moral justification for both nuclear war and abortion.
I don't think Barnett is supporting abortion. Rather, he's condemning people who say it is "murder". And guess what-- he's right, and pro-lifers should stop saying that. The fact is, the word "murder" is thrown around by pro-lifers because they are horrified by abortion and want to stop it (and because they think it will win them arguments), but without the slightest thought about whether women who seek to terminate unplanned pregnancies, and doctors who perform therapeutic abortions, are in any way analogous to murderers in the traditional sense. The word "murder" is also thrown around because your typical pro-lifer tends to want to draw a bright line at conception and not distinguish between preventing a blastocyst from implanting and killing a developed fetus at 5 months. So, they throw a blanket epithet over the entire debate so that they don't have to ver early-term abortions where the "life begins at conception" argument seems extreme. So instead of being offended that Barnett compares torture to abortion, maybe it's time for those on the pro-life side to be a bit less bombastic in the way they label women and doctors.
Mike, If Mr. Barnett were saying that he supports "coercive interrogation" but not torture, then it might be helpful to distinguish between the two (though since it's his distinction, I would think that he should be the one to have to explain it). But this isn't what Mr. Barnett says. His whole post is a critique of the "anti-torture" position, not the "anti-coercive interrogation" position.
His whole post is a critique of the "anti-torture" position, not the "anti-coercive interrogation" position. True enough - supporters of coercive interrogation ought to define what they are talking about, as well. But those methods largely have been defined: waterboarding, hot/cold, sleep deprivation, belly slapping, etc. I think it's a stretch to call any of those things torture, but in any case I haven't seen any such explanations proposed coherently. It's always just an emotional wailing about how we're no better than our enemies. Drawn to its ultimate conclusion, nuking the world is the best aid we can create to peace, as all warfare will stop immediately. This is the ultimate conclusion to a different question than the one I posed, which was "how can one win the war while minimizing civilian casualties?" They know no harm will come to them. Prisoners are waterboarded to make them panic. They don't know how long it will keep up. So the two are incomparable. If you want to argue that we shouldn't scare terrorists into giving us information that could save the lives of innocent people, go ahead and make that case.
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Isn't he comparing the DEBATE over abortion with the DEBATE over torture?
Posted by Aaron | May 1, 2007 5:23 PM