Matthews, Hitchens Lead Stirring Fight Against Pro-Torture Views Of Michael Smerconish

Cheers to MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens, for their resolute opposition to Michael Smerconish's cockamamie embrace of institutionalized torture. Smerconish, gripped by the fear of "ticking timebomb scenarios," mounted a defense of the practice that bordered on the pornographic, and decisively crossed over into the territory of the nonsensical.

I've never been impressed with the reasoning behind the "ticking time bomb" scenario, a facile little bit of quasi-ethical wonkery that serves the plots of television shows like Alias or 24 far better than it does reality. This idea is, if one has someone in custody who has what one believes to be "actionable intelligence" on an imminent terrorist threat, then one should be prepared to brutally torture that information out of the detainee.

The problem is, the application of logic destroys this premise. Either the person in your custody has information, or he doesn't. That person is either willing to share that information, or he isn't. If the person does not have the information, then torture is both a waste of precious time and a terrible moral wrong. But, if, hypothetically, that detainee does have the information at hand, it stands to reason that they also have a pretty firm idea as to how much time is left on that ticking clock. With that information in hand, the detainee is free to use this radical technique commonly referred to as "deception" to waylay his captors and ensure the success of the plot. It's fairly clear then, that even in the event of a "ticking time bomb" scenario, torture inevitably and logically leads to a waste of precious time and the commission of a moral wrong.

As far as torture's lack of efficacy, I'd refer you to an expert on the matter, author Matthew Alexander, who stated firmly that he "never saw coercive methods [pay off]...When I was in Iraq, the few times I saw people use harsh methods, it was always counterproductive." Similarly, he disputed the story of the "ticking time bomb":

"When I was in Iraq we were dealing with the ticking time bomb every day, the people we had captured, they were behind the suicide bombs. So many of them, right then and there, had information that could have saved lives. But we knew that if we resorted to torture to get that information, that al Qaeda would have used that to recruit more fighters in the future."

So, what this really breaks down to is Smerconish absurdly advocating for blowtorches to be wielded against other human beings, for no other reason than it just feels right to be a torturing American. I guess it would be okay for our enemies to do the same to our soldiers. I guess it would be okay to tromp on children's testicles.

You know, I might feel differently if we had a President who, if forced to use torture in an effort to save lives, had the moral compass to immediately resign the office and render himself unto the judgment of The Hague. But those we have in charge have clearly demonstrated that they lack that sense of responsibility - they want complete credit for saving lives without ever having to own the means by which they were saved. As such, no one should have to countenance this despicable bullshit.

[WATCH.]

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Comments

[jones]

So Chris is uncomfortable about being 63? Hmmmmm... Must be why his hair keeps changing from lite blonde to orange.

[Yermammy]

How vacuous are you trying to be, anyway? Perhaps you should go back to "Better Homes & Weaklings" or "Reader's Digress". You're in the adult section, now. Torture is criminal and those responsible are going to pay for their transgressions.

[Ivar]

Why do they kep saying Al Queda is responsible for 9/11? It was not. 9/11 was planed by Osama bin Laden long before we heard of Al Queda. The Bin Ladens were/are friends of the Bush's. (which is probablly why we did not ever catch him.)

[bog]

yeah, that must be it.

[ShinjiIkari]

The Smirk reserves the right to target (or perhaps "profile" is correct) a group of people for whom torture is acceptable. He even has the standard James-Bond-Hollywood-style "if you had just five minutes to save the world" hypothetical ready.

Excuse me, but Jesus wasn't talking in hypotheticals when he commanded us to "love one another", and the Budha wasn't talking in hypotheticals when he said to "show compassion toward all sentient beings without discrimination."

If waterboarding anybody is acceptable to you, then you've rejected Christianity, even if you don't know it yet.

[1099]

And what might the consequences be if one has rejected Christianity?

[SwingVoter]

Smerconish is a reasonable man, and I could see and respect his view on this issue though we disagree.

[piquet]

He's playing you. The guy is a McCain style jellyfish that's morphs into whatever will get him an audience. Not unlike Tucker Carlson used to do. I bet he never even served in the military which in my opinion lends to his lack of credibility.

[robertjames]

^ Kiss**s!

[nolalily]

Tweety had an opportunity to help the general public gain further information concerning this topic in order to truly understand it and to make better informed decisions. As usual, he and his big mouth blew it.

[nolalily]

Torture is revenge masquerading as information gathering.

[myleftfoot]

Smerconish is as stable as a new-born foal.

[Jezreel]

This interview is a perfect illustration of why I stopped watching Hardball. That wasn't a conversation and, as usual, it didn't do anything to elevate political discourse. It was a shouting match between Tweety and Tweety. Nothing more and nothing less.

[JaMar]

I'm sure Hardball mourns the loss of your viewership but that was hardly a shouting match. It was a great demostration of just how far out there people like Smerconish are when it comes to human rights and the role of the Geneva convention in U.S interests around the world, and how wrong they are on the issue of torture. Matthews should have hammered him harder on the Japanese scenario though... he let him off the hook a few times.

[gerrylong]

By Smerconish's logic, there is no point in having international law of any kind, because he justifies it on the basis of "at attack which attempted to kill Americans."

Any country can therefore justify its use of torture, because "they were trying to kill citizens of OUR country". No matter that they were members of Al Qaeda, they were still all citizens of a country which should be respecting international law.

Smerconish is guilty of the "American Exceptionalism" garbage that makes some of our citizens think we are somehow BETTER than those of other countries. These NeoCon mis-fits who brought us this war are all guilty of it. They must have been watching John Wayne movies when they should have been reading history, political science, philosophy, and psychology. They are nut-cases, and look at the mess they have created for us.

[subucni 1 1]

We lose if our morality is questioned and with the advent of the new policies on torture under this Administration we are losing. A beacon of hope lost in a blinking of an eye. And though lady justice is blind I am afraid even she notices the dimming of the light in these troubling times.

[MajorKong]

"Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture." - General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

[Oonagh]

Torture makes people talk... useless talk.. just what they think will stop the torture.

[SkimaskBob]

I wouldn't give any kudos here to Matthews - Hitchens yes, but not Matthews. And here's why - this discussion requires big picture thinking, nicely illustrated with, "The more seductive the excuse, the more I'm opposed to it ... what people are asking for is one excuse to allow for a general imposition of a policy that would be illegal under any other law."

This is big picture stuff, not something that can be boiled down easily into "If there was a ticking time bomb blah blah blah" and Matthews' only questions are basically about that. "So if a Japanese colonel from world war two blah blah blah".

It's frustrating to hear these profoundly difficult arguments jammed into easily digestible "If this then that" points for the sake of television. Matthews has a massive soapbox to stand on, and I'd argue a massive intellect from which to draw, but for some reason he refuses to let his show be as smart as he is.

[research]

Any terrorist, will Lie when tortured.

[MajorKong]

Anybody will lie under torture. That's what we were taught in SERE. People will say what they think you want to hear instead of what you really want to know.

[Daniboy]

Sounds like warerboarding works.

[the Etruscan]

If sadism is your kick, then yes. Otherwise, it's mostly good for extracting false confessions for show trials. Take the Spanish Inquisition, they could get you to say to anything.

[MajorKong]

The FBI has much better techniques for extracting information that actually work. They just don't have that feel-good revenge factor that torturing people gives you.