Morality, Terror, Ethics and Torture Does HLS Know Right From Wrong?

DAVID BRANNAN CENTER FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE AND SECURITY DEPT. OF NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

Slide 1 Opening Credits

Music

Slide 2 Morality, Terror, Ethics and Torture

Does Homeland Security know right from wrong?

By David Brannan

Slide 3 Do Other Societies Have a Right?

Do other societies have a right to hold as ethical actions that we believe to be clearly unethical? We’ve looked at the three major ways of viewing ethics: the consequentialist, de-ontological and virtue ethics approaches.

The US is often accused of not acting quickly enough with regard to unethical situations that are constantly taking place around the world.

Clearly as a nation we want to view our national and homeland security efforts as ethical, but holding a particular ethical framework makes it difficult to pick and choose when to intervene and when not to intervene in another states’ actions.

As you look at the terror in the face of this woman about to be stoned in Iran, our Western ethical perspectives are pushed to extremes. How can this be right—be ethical? After looking at this woman’s face we can easily justify taking actions to stop what we call unethical actions and then quickly link it to our national virtue and unwillingness to accept immoral action; to Islamic extremism, to terror, or any number of positions we find abhorrent.

But Western European countries have similarly protested the US' use of capital punishment in any form. The dilemma, then, seems to be in relation to how that sentence is carried out. Eighth Amendment Constitutional guarantees are meant to protect us from Cruel and Unusual punishment, but that is from our cultural perspective. Certainly the US seems much less concerned with those same issues as carried out by our allies in each week. Torture, guarantees related to cruel and unusual punishment, and how we choose to interrogate terrorists converge as we look at pursuing ethical homeland security policies.

Slide 4 Torture: What is it?

The first question we should probably ask is: what is torture?

While the dictionary approach to what torture "is" and "is not" seems clear—politicians, bureaucrats and the American public have struggled to come to consensus on what torture is or is not, and how to use methods we deem effective and legal, in the homeland security project.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines torture as: “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain.”

Slide 5 Torture: What is it?

As we look at how the international community has sought to distinguish what is and is not torture we may be tempted to ask, who cares? After all, terrorists use horrible tactics against innocent people. Additionally, we have to recognize that we are in a struggle for freedom and our way of life—so who is to say what is or is not torture in today’s security environment?

According to the 1975 United Nations Declaration Against Torture:

• "For the purpose of this Declaration, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or intimidating him or other persons. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. " The definition clearly and explicitly includes psychological as well as physical pain and suffering.

Slide 6 Torture: What is it?

Which of these do you consider torture? Note these lists include both psychological and physical methods of treatment …

Do you ever believe that the use of these tactics is warranted? What if the use of one or more of these methods would secure the release of an innocent victim of ? Isn’t it ethical to make sure we do all we can to secure that release?

Slide 7 Torture: Is it Ever OK?

Lets take the discussion away from the theoretical to the personal. This is Dennis Rader— known as the BTK (bind, torture, kill) killer. He brutally raped and murdered women from 1974 to 1991 in and around Wichita, Kansas.

Would the use of torture on a person like this ever be ok? If this man knows where your daughter is being held and raped repeatedly, and you can get information to free that girl through the use of torture, isn’t it ethical to use those methods to save the innocent girl?

Slide 8 Moderate Physical Pressure

Accepting the use of what the culture has previously held as torture—for some specific reasons (for example "ticking time bomb scenario" - where the use is justified because potential consequences of some act could cause some great loss of life)—can become a slippery slope.

In 1987 the Landau Commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, was set up by the Israeli government to investigate the methods of interrogation used by the General Security Service (GSS) with regards to Hostile Terrorist Activity.

With regards to interrogation methods the commission concluded that, in cases in which obtaining information is necessary in order to save lives, the investigator is entitled to apply ‘a moderate degree of physical pressure.’

According to the commission report:

"To put it bluntly, the alternative is: are we to accept the offence of assault entailed in slapping a suspect's face, or threatening him, in order to induce him to talk and reveal a cache of explosive materials meant for use in carrying an act of mass terror against a civilian population, and there by prevent the greater evil which is about to occur? The answer is self evident."

Here are 5 types of interrogation methods that were used by the GSS at that time:

• Shaking, which consists of holding the detainee by the collar of his shirt and violently shaking him. • Shackling, wherein officials handcuff the detainee to a low stool with his arms stretched backwards in a painful position, and tighten the handcuffs until they press or rub against the skin, causing swelling and abrasions on the wrists. • Hooding, which consists of placing a sack over the head of the detainee. • Constantly playing loud music in the room where detainees are held before interrogation. • , in which periods of interrogation are interspersed with a “waiting” period that may last for days, and during which detainees are unable to sleep.

As a nation, Israel can nearly be defined by the conflict and defense against terrorism. It is the country most often used as an example by students looking at how to defend against terrorist actions. It is a form of government held up as ethical in an unethical region—but is their use of these methods a model for what we should do as a nation?

The question is not an easy one.

Slide 9 Enhanced Interrogation

Under the Bush administration, our national relationship to Constitutional amendments was questioned, given the nature of the terrorist conflict in which we found ourselves. Famously, wrote a series of legal justifications (known as the "") for using methods previously considered as torturous on prisoners taken from the battlefield—and elsewhere—if the person being detained was believed to have information related to potential terrorist attacks against the nation.

These memos continue to be hotly debated in the press—but do you see their precepts as ethical?

Slide 10 Enhanced Interrogation

It would be naive to suggest that no information could be extracted using torture tactics. Former Vice President Cheney argued that the enhanced interrogation techniques that the Yoo memo confirmed as legally justifiable did in fact provide information that stopped terror plots already underway.

If that is accurate, how can we argue with any method that will save US citizens?

Can’t we easily use the Consequentialist maxim of “the greatest good for the greatest number” to show that it is the ethical thing to do – and to perhaps go well beyond the enhanced interrogations techniques described here, using other, more effective methods torture to obtain information required?

How do we decide where those limits are, and under what circumstances? Finally, who does the deciding?

Slide 26 Closing Credits

Music