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Wed Nov 4 22:47:02 2009
Yay! More torture.
More notes on the economics of torture.

Polite interrogation technique
Image courtesy of The Daily Mail (UK)

In May, I tried to make the case for disallowing torture of suspects, even (gasp) terror suspects.

At the time, the torture memos were making the headlines, and as a result many people were asking if and when torture was ever appropriate. In fact, people started re-examining a number of moral issues in combat against terrorism. Here are some of the better articles I ran across.

First, this article from Slate documents the current legality of assassination. This is from Slate's "Explainer" series, which is fascinating but purposely sticks to the facts. That's fine: the whole point of this article is to call out the supposed legality (or not) of political assassinations.

Certainly President Ford's 1976 Executive Order banning assassination is the starting point. (By the way, that's a surprisingly readable document!) The point of the Slate explainer article was that although killing heads of state is clearly off-limits, targeting terrorists or "part time" combatants is much more problematic.

Curiously, the Slate explainer article doesn't say so explicitly, but killing suspected al-Qaida members in CIA-sponsored Predator attacks would also seem to be illegal. Now that the CIA has terminated its al-Qaida assassination authorization, perhaps the US and other intelligence agencies will capture or disrupt terrorist organizations without killing suspects? A harder mission, but keeping the high moral ground is much more honorable and probably more effective.

Why do I say that?

Well, for one thing, there is a chance that torture makes the FBI's job harder, because the agency will have a harder time cultivating double agents. The argument is that engaging in torture "casts doubts on the U.S. government's overall willingness to act in good faith." I'm guessing most terrorists are irrational, and won't care whether we torture or not. But many of these potential double-agents are fairly rational people ("diplomats, scientists, or scholars"), not terrorists, and so the high moral ground may actually make a difference in the FBI's ability to turn foreign agents.

Most interesting of all was an article by a former legal advisor to the Israeli Defense Forces, who had made frontline decisions about "targeted kills." That's kind of an euphemism for assassination, but the author believed there was a distinction between political assassination (targeted kills by nonmilitary, nonuniformed agents) and targeted kills made by uniformed military personnel in a combat zone.

The author advised Israeli military commanders (in the field) from 1994 to 1997. To my civilian mind, the author's viewpoint was somewhat brutal. As he ends his article:

... if you're sure you've got the right guy, and you have no other viable options, fire away. The nation's safety may depend on it.

This reminded me of situations the Slate explainer called "[adopting] a classic aspect of law-enforcement philosophy to justify an otherwise blatantly criminal action." But this really all comes down to whether or not self defense is justified. And that is an especially hard problem in combat zones.

But for all of his at-times hawkish tones, the Israeli military advisor was pretty harsh about the US Administration's authorization of al-Qaida assassinations. As the author put it:

Counterterrorism, in civil democratic regimes, must be rooted in the rule of law, morality in armed conflict, and an analysis of policy effectiveness. There can be no "ifs, ands, or buts."

Even a hawk on the front lines of an anti-terrorist war takes a hard line on law and morality! But after all, that is a good deal of what he is fighting for.

I think whether or not the nation supports assassination or torture depends on the current emotional state. If there is another terrorist attack, the majority will certainly accept (if not demand) targeted killings of suspects without trial--at least for a while. But the current less-passionate debate, from a number of sources, would indicate that torture and assassination--any methods of dubious morality--are probably self-destructive in the long run.

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