Framing Torture

This Kos post makes the point that supporters of the Bush Administration's rather lax attitue toward human rights try to frame the issue of torture of detainees as critics caring more about "terrorists" than "our own." That is indeed the frame (or spin) that Bush supporters are trying to use.

The strange thing about this spin is that it is so dissonant with other conservative frames. One could argue, for example, that official or semi-official policies such as those that we know about undermine the value or dignity of life. Clearly, if the Right wants to apply some kind of inherent dignity of life argument to frozen embryos and permanently vegetative patients, the same kind of dignity should apply to suspected terrorists, too. Now, I know that the rightwing logic always excludes alleged criminals from the dignity frame, not to mention death-row inmates and the like. (Here's where the Bush Administration and the Catholic Church divurge, for example.) But supporters of torture of detainees--and maybe one should really say torture deniers as opposed to supporters--should think about this. The evil of totalitarian regimes is the willing (and willed) violation of human dignity in the name, ultimately, of power alone. The U.S. does not fit that description, but when our operatives willfully violate human rights in a way that is, at best, marginally related to protecting U.S. lives, we are moving in that direction.

Just to be clear: I don't give a flying fig for terrorists who actually attack the U.S. or other legitimate governments. But that doesn't mean that everyone who happens to come into our custody is a terrorist. My conservative friends should think about their own experiences with government bureaucracy for a minute, here. Unless the error rate is zero, abusing detainees will lead to violations of the inherent dignity of life. Now maybe you're comfortable with an error rate, if there is some value to the intelligence gained through abuse or torture of others. But do you really think that there is?

One final point on government. Policies are made at a pretty high level, but they are always implemented by operatives at a much lower level. So when we talk about what U.S. policy is, let's remember that whatever we think Rumsfeld, Sanchez, or even W. mean by the policy, they have to keep in mind (they are responsible) that those policies are ultimately in the hands of people who become government interrogators. And what are those people like, do you think? It is no good to say, the policy stops just short of x, when x is foreseeable and, really, inevitable, given the policy in place.