I can't say I've been following every twist and turn of the interrogation debate. The reason being that it seems obvious, to me anyway, that there are going to be extremely rare occasions when things such as waterboarding, repulsive though they are, will be morally justified. And, yes, on reflection, I'd say waterboarding - one of those laddish euphemisms we like to throw around - does qualify as a form of torture. (As does the use of intensely loud music. I know other people wouldn't agree on that.) Do I feel confident that people can be trusted to use techniques like that in the right circumstances a hundred per cent of the time? No. Which is what troubles me most of all.
What a relief,then, to find that the moderate, non-partisan Jonathan Rauch is willing to acknowledge the shades of grey. Torture should be legally off-limits, he says, but the deal struck in Congress faces up to realities:
[G]eneral agreement exists that the central purpose of a detention and interrogation system is to prevent terrorism, not to prevent torture. That point may sound trivial, but it is not: Many human-rights advocates believe that the foremost responsibility of any detention system is to treat detainees humanely. On Capitol Hill, both parties reject that view. In its way, this is a seminal decision...
To use coercive interrogation as part of everyday intelligence-gathering would certainly be unacceptable. Even the occasional and careful use of rough methods risks tarnishing America's image and diminishing the country's power to lead by example. On the other hand, if making a Qaeda leader stand naked, depriving him of sleep, or flashing bright lights at him could prevent a major terrorist attack, it would seem immoral to put those methods off-limits, and perverse to call them war crimes. Surely the rights of potential terrorism victims count no less than the rights of detainees...
The law should leave room for exceptional recourse to "alternative" interrogation techniques, while making sure that their use is genuinely exceptional. ...If the need to water-board a senior Qaeda operative is compelling, the president should be willing to make a finding that tells the Intelligence committees what the government needs to do and why. If the committees object, chances are the public would, too.
