A short primer on torture!

Torturous Tortured Logic

BE FOREWARNED! My instinct on this subject is to really let go. But doing so would probably obfuscate the subject as much as any of the many commentaries before the public these days. So I'll restrain myself and rely on Ambrose Bierce, my favorite journalist-gadfly, who wrote before he disappeared into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution:

"Endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be."

Anyone unfamiliar with, for the first time intending to listen to the do-gooder, high road, halo-burdened crowd should get themselves a barf bag before they settle in.

One of the most practiced silver-tongued advocates of the “no-torture” debate waxed eloquently at length on Meet the Press yesterday. He was so slick that I actually paused a few seconds before I barfed.

Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, made his very well practised case like this: The future of humanity rests on the U.S. making Senator McCain’s “no-torture” amendment, passed last week 90 to 9, federal law, applicable to all U.S. agencies, contractors, or representatives. The Senator’s curious amendment would also forbid any “degrading, coercive, and inhumane” treatment—hopeless muddying the letter of the law whenever our agencies seek critical information that might save American lives or treasure, in conventional or unconventional war times.

In other words, according to Graham, we should go along with voluntarily strapping one arm behind our collective back in any struggle with an enemy, because (loud, extended drumroll please!): Americans should represent the “gold standard” of the highest form of ideal human behavior, so that lesser nations (and inextricably linked lesser human beings, it follows in their logic) will be impressed, instructed, and therefore will follow our high-meaning example. Not only will this bring love, peace, contentment, and positive spiritualism to the world, but doing this will save the world from plunging into moral chaos akin to evil doers such as those found in the circles of Al-Qaida & Co.

My barf was extended, hearty, and complete!

Let us get real for a few seconds: Man, no matter how high-minded he might like to be thought of, acts first and foremost out of the instinct to survive—as any psychologist will confirm. Close behind the survival instinct is the instinct to win; granted, this is nearly as strong as the survival instinct, because it is often seen to be irretrievably linked to the survival instinct—particularly pronounced during wars between individuals, nation-states, and business competitors.

In an attempt to see things as they are, and not as they should be, we can quickly see the fallacy in Senator McCain’s amendment. First, voluntarily subscribing to such a high-minded standard will not automatically assure one’s entry into the arms of Jesus or into a state of Nirvana. Second, enemies bent on winning at any cost will have little regard for the rules we might establish—surely, the jihadist beheaders have taught us that.

Let’s face it: Torture, no matter how lamentable, is a practice that is permanently embedded in the dark side of our psyches and will not easily be exorcised by many Amendments or Sermons nor excite us to action when told about how morally reprehensible the practice is. Just as Eve was programmed to succumb to her base instincts, causing mankind’s permanent “fall from Grace,” so it easily follows that a squad of tough, kill-and-survive Marines, under fire and threat of beheading if captured, could hardly be blamed if they did not stop and prepare a Japanese tea ceremony for their sword wielders. Especially if they thought their captured adversary might be harboring information relating to their survival.

Even if the preachers and Ivory Tower do-gooders believe that laying down some abstract set of laws will someday contribute to a finer, more pleasant association between competitors or combatants--it is silly, unrealistic, and unthinkable to condemn those who must employ it under stressful, life-threatening situations.

The best we can or should expect is to limit the application of torture to those “stressful, life-threatening” situations and not to allow it to spread, as it easily would, among the those on the sidelines and not directly affected—as happens in crowds that are driven by an irrational crowd psychology we have yet to understand (take as an example, yesterday’s violent beach riots against Muslims over the weekend in Australia--they spilled over onto the constabulary charged with preventing loss of life by the mobs). To this reasoned extent, military and other U.S. agency managers must always be in charge and must promulgate clear rules and procedures for when, where, and how torture will be applied. Such rule-making authority must extend downward to the level where the "action" is--not upward to the some congressional oversight committee or government entity remote from the scene.

Just one critical exception to all this! Absolutely banned should be any form of torture involving forcing opponents to listen to any recorded materials (visual or aural) by Barbra Streisand! Such a form of torture would be simply too barbaric and beyond the pale.

Sounds brutal and "primitive," eh? Sure, maybe, I can handle that accusation. But until someone revokes man’s first motivational instinct—self-preservation-survival—I’d rather we deal successfully with it, than fall prey to the vultures of those who don't give a damn about high sounding slogans. So doing would simply constitute surrendering whatever positive values Occidental societies have achieved, especially during the past two or three thousand years (including those mores from “foreign” cultures that underpin our current social order).

Pass the word to your congress people--especially to the suspiciously hypocritically sanctimonious Senators Graham and McCain:

I want to survive, so that we can look forward to building a more idealistic society where perhaps all men who share the planet will have purged themselves of the primitive instinct of survival.