Changes

Since the release of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s dramatic [[confessions]], [[moral ]] outrage at the extent of his crimes has been mixed with doubts. Can his claims be trusted? What if he confessed to more than he really did, either because of a vain [[desire ]] to be remembered as the big terrorist mastermind, or because he was ready to confess anything in [[order ]] to stop the water boarding and [[other ]] “enhanced interrogation techniques”?

If there was one surprising aspect to this [[situation ]] it has less to do with the confessions themselves than with the fact that for the first [[time ]] in a great many years, [[torture ]] was normalized — presented as something acceptable. The [[ethical ]] consequences of it should worry us all.

While the scope of Mr. Mohammed’s crimes is clear and horrifying, it is worth noting that the [[United States ]] seems incapable of treating him even as it would the hardest criminal — in the [[civilized ]] Western [[world]], even the most depraved [[child ]] murderer gets judged and punished. But any [[legal ]] trial and [[punishment ]] of Mr. Mohammed is now [[impossible ]] — no court that operates within the frames of Western legal systems can deal with illegal detentions, confessions obtained by torture and the like. (And this conforms, perversely, to Mr. Mohammed’s desire to be treated as an [[enemy ]] rather than a criminal.)

It is as if not only the terrorists themselves, but also the fight against [[them]], now has to proceed in a [[gray ]] zone of legality. We thus have de facto “legal” and “illegal” criminals: those who are to be treated with legal procedures (using lawyers and the like), and those who are [[outside ]] legality, [[subject ]] to military tribunals or seemingly endless incarceration.

Mr. Mohammed has become what the Italian [[political ]] [[philosopher ]] Giorgio [[Agamben ]] calls “homo sacer”: a creature legally [[dead ]] while [[biologically ]] still alive. And he’s not the only one [[living ]] in an in-between world. The American authorities who deal with detainees have become a sort of [[counterpart ]] to [[homo sacer]]: acting as a legal [[power]], they operate in an empty [[space ]] that is sustained by the law and yet not regulated by the rule of law.

Some don’t find this troubling. The realistic counterargument goes: The war on [[terrorism ]] is dirty, one is put in situations where the lives of thousands may depend on information we can get from our prisoners, and one must take extreme steps. As Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law [[School ]] puts it: “I’m not in favor of torture, but if you’re going to have it, it should damn well have court approval.” Well, if this is “honesty,” I [[think ]] I’ll stick with [[hypocrisy]].

Yes, most of us can imagine a [[singular ]] situation in which we might resort to torture — to save a loved one from immediate, unspeakable harm perhaps. I can. In such a [[case]], however, it is crucial that I do not elevate this desperate [[choice ]] into a [[universal ]] [[principle]]. In the unavoidable brutal urgency of the [[moment]], I should simply do it. But it cannot become an acceptable standard; I must retain the proper [[sense ]] of the [[horror ]] of what I did. And when torture becomes just [[another ]] in the [[list ]] of counterterrorism techniques, all sense of horror is lost.

When, in the fifth season of the TV show “24,” it became clear that the mastermind behind the terrorist plot was none other than the president himself, many of us were eagerly waiting to see whether Jack Bauer would apply to the “leader “[[leader]] of the free world” his standard [[technique ]] in dealing with terrorists who do not [[want ]] to divulge a [[secret ]] that may save thousands. Will he torture the president?

[[Reality ]] has now surpassed TV. What “24” still had the decency to [[present ]] as Jack Bauer’s disturbing and desperate choice is now rendered business as usual.

In a way, those who refuse to advocate torture outright but still accept it as a legitimate topic of debate are more dangerous than those who explicitly endorse it. [[Morality ]] is never just a matter of [[individual ]] [[conscience]]. It thrives only if it is sustained by what [[Hegel ]] called “objective “[[objective]] spirit,” the set of unwritten rules that [[form ]] the background of every individual’s [[activity]], telling us what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

For example, a clear [[sign ]] of [[progress ]] in Western [[society ]] is that one does not [[need ]] to argue against rape: it is “dogmatically” clear to everyone that rape is wrong. If someone were to advocate the legitimacy of rape, he would appear so ridiculous as to disqualify himself from any further consideration. And the same should hold for torture.

Are we aware what lies at the end of the road opened up by the normalization of torture? A significant detail of Mr. Mohammed’s [[confession ]] gives a hint. It was reported that the interrogators submitted to waterboarding and were able to endure it for less than 15 seconds on average before [[being ]] ready to confess anything and everything. Mr. Mohammed, however, gained their grudging admiration by enduring it for two and a half minutes.

Are we aware that the last time such things were part of [[public ]] [[discourse ]] was back in the late Middle Ages, when torture was still a public [[spectacle]], an honorable way to [[test ]] a [[captured ]] enemy who might gain the admiration of the crowd if he bore the [[pain ]] with dignity? Do we really want to [[return ]] to this kind of [[primitive ]] warrior [[ethics]]?

This is why, in the end, the greatest victims of torture-as-usual are the rest of us, the informed public. A precious part of our collective [[identity ]] has been irretrievably lost. We are in the middle of a [[process ]] of moral corruption: those in power are literally trying to break a part of our ethical backbone, to dampen and undo what is arguably our civilization’s greatest [[achievement]], the growth of our spontaneous moral sensitivity.