Making Torture Lawful?

The argument is being played out in front of us.

Dark deeds were done at the leader's behest, to achieve desirable, even honorable, goals. The nation's security and stability depend on this, and terrorism and national upheaval averted. So, though unlawful, it all seems necessary. The leader clearly wants it -- and is asking agents to do it. Accepting public responsibility, however, is another matter.

But this is not about torture and the Bush administration's use of "enhanced" interrogation methods that were outside of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. This is not about the wide array of unlawful actions that the Bush team asserted were vital to save the United States from another Al Qaeda attack.

Instead, this is a play, Mary Stuart, written in 1800 by Friedrich Schiller, the German playwright and poet. This riveting drama, which just opened on Broadway to glowing reviews, presents a powerful tale: Queen Elizabeth I clearly wants her cousin, Mary Stuart killed, but doesn't want to be held responsible. She wants it done -- without having her fingerprints on it.

Elizabeth knows that Mary has a strong claim for the British throne and, as a fervent Roman Catholic, sees herself as the rightful ruler to lead England away from Protestant apostasy. Though Mary has long been imprisoned, her followers are continually plotting. And Mary, a legendary beauty, also has a strong claim for the affections of Elizabeth's current favorite, the Earl of Leicester. Elizabeth, the Protestant on that throne, wants this trouble ended.

Schiller understands that, for many, political is always personal.

Elizabeth, a skillful politician as well as a jealous woman, knows how to achieve her ends. During one remarkable scene, rage at Mary has finally propelled the Tudor queen to sign her cousin's death warrant. But it still has to be carried out -- and Elizabeth has no John Yoo at the ready.

In fact, the young courtier whose job this is won't even touch the death warrant without the queen's explicit instructions. True, she is holding the document out to him, but before he will take it, the courtier asks if this means she wants him to execute it now. He says he must hear her say it -- for he knows that killing a queen, even one held prisoner, is never done lightly. This document is too hot and he knows, in the end, he could get more than singed. Regicide is dangerous business.

Does she want him to keep the signed warrant in reserve, awaiting further orders? Does she want him to execute it immediately? Does she want him to execute it at some future date? Elizabeth won't respond directly. She just keeps saying that she has signed it. Even in her rage, she is too much the political animal to say the words.

Earlier in the play, Elizabeth had secretly commissioned someone she believed was a Protestant spy, her double agent in a nest of papist insurgents, to carry out this murder. She knew his actions would not lead back to her. But this courtier, whose official job is to carry out her warrants, is another matter entirely.

Ultimately, the courtier does take the warrant, though he still is still unsure what to do. The queen's close adviser, Lord Burleigh, does know, however. He grabs the document and rushes through the orders of executions. Though Elizabeth later vacillates again, insisting she did not mean it to be carried out, even orders the courtier executed and Burleigh exiled -- Burleigh understood what his leader wanted. So he did it.

That, in all too many cases, is how power has been executed. A president would say he wants something done, some goal attained, and his senior staffers go and do it. There was a name for this sort of maneuver -- plausible deniability.

But sometimes the matter is so important -- or so illegal -- that it requires direct orders from those in charge. Plausible deniability will not cut it. Actual written permission must be obtained, perhaps in a presidential finding, to address any misinterpretation that this was the act of a freelancer, or a renegade -- or even a few bad apples.

Schiller in 1800 knew why Bush administration officials would sign off on these infamous torture memos.

Comments

[johnco]

If you read the Memos, you will find the rational they will use.

In the case of the "Baddest of the Bad", they had an Air Force SERE psychologist who signed off on each element of the Interrogations.
They are people that watch over the Escape and Evasion training the Air Force puts its pilots through. In it the "student" under goes torture, in small amounts, so that he will be able to face them when, and if he/she is captured by the Enemy. It came out of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. It was mainly used to stop the pilots from signing false confessions of Germ Warfare and other atrocities. The school is based on the Communists, form of torture.
As the SERE shrink, signed off on the elements, then it wasn't torture, we were just putting them through tough training.
The trouble is:
It didn't stay in Gitmo, and when others did it, no SERE shrink was there.
Detainees died, using the "techniques".
Let's just have a simple investigation, Grand Jury and trial, on everything they did.
As W didn't go to Nam, he didn't go through SERE training, so he wouldn't know what it was like. No-one else on his team had any Military experience either, so we went down a road that should have never been taken.
If we can't get the information on what really happened, we should just Water board, W, and Cheny until they tell us.
After all, it isn't torture.

[S1m0n]

One of the memos notes that the CIA's method of waterboarding wasn't the same as SERE's. While SERE used a tiny, measured amount of water for a single application, the CIA was free-pouring, over and over.

[textynn]

Hiring a hit man is still considered murder. Using a hit man or a machete as your tool makes no difference in the end. Only the elite could get away with this ridiculous play on the truth and make all their subordinates pretend it's okay. It's like Henry VIII killing off his wives so he can remarry and stay a good Catholic. This kind of hypocrisy is the language of sociopaths.

Somebody somewhere made these decisions. If the subordinates didn't, than who?? But whoever did, it's beside the point because our leaders knew it was happening and condoned it by not stopping it. Do you think a woman would escape prosecution if she knew her boyfriend was abusing a child somewhere and didn't have it stopped?

I see evil leaders doing whatever they want with the people of the world to make themselves rich, then rationalizing it like children or just saying "So". Some people may choose to listen to and accept lies and murder and acts of brutality as okay, I never will.

See: War is a Racket by Brigadier General Smedley Butler

[S1m0n]

I wonder if Schiller 'adjusted' some of the facts? Historically, the spy's role was to approach Mary, identify himself as a (secret) Catholic in touch with other Catholics plotting to restore Mary to the throne, and to offer to carry a message to them. Mary wrote one, in what she thought was an unbreakable cipher. Unbeknownst to her, however, were two facts: the courier had been turned, and was now working for Lord Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster, and worst still, the rennaissance had arrived, bringing with it new muslim techniques for decrypting ciphers based on letter frequency. With them, Mary's message could be read, and in it she plotted the queen's death.

Which was enough to get her topped.

[Marcospinelli]

Cheney is now trying to obscure your eloquent explanation, Ms. Silver, by calling on Obama to declassify another memo that Cheney claims shows how effective torture was. Cheney claims there was actionable intelligence that torturers got from their victims.

Whether that's true or not, torture is and has been illegal in US law.

[marleysghost]

Europe eventually ended torture because they knew that confessions coerced under torture were bogus. It took a US president to undo 400 years of progress to a more humane world. Now that is a legacy - 400 years in reverse -and a replay of Nazi Germany as icing on the cake. Let's face it - we are the barbarians now and the rest of the world knows it.

[Marcospinelli]

You don't even need to go there. Torture is illegal. It came to be illegal after debates over its effectiveness and previous ticking time bomb considerations. If they believed it was an effective means to get intelligence, then they were required to change the law.

But they didn't.

They broke the law.

[citizensrus]

I recall a leader who made persecution of the Jews legal. I recall a leader who made offering safe harbor to Jews illegal.
It comes down to knowing in your heart what is just and right.

[youknow]

Everybody with half a brain knows that the hullabaloo about torture is simply to appease the public. In reality it will go on when deemed necessary. Good Article, and somewhat sad. Can we ever get out of this sinkhole?

[tommo]

I never see or hear a comment that was my take-away from Orwell's 1984, that the purpose of torture is terrorism of the populace. Bush / Cheney were asleep at the wheel, at best, before 9/11. They had to over-react, create drama, in order to distract the populace from their incompetence.

Bush sold the soul of our for nothing. And now Obama is equally responsible.

[marleysghost]

Yes, the message is for the rest of us. step out of line and you may be next. Russia under Stalin, Germany under Hitler, Serbia under Milosovic. The US under Bush was warped into a mirror image of East Germany post WW2 -secretive and rabid with the CIA in the role of the STASI, the DDR's secret police. Everyone involved needs to be arrested and tried in public for their roles in this - just like we did in Germany in 1947. Hunt them down and bring them to trial. After all we have no qualms about deporting ex-Nazis back to Germany for trial for the same behavior why should this be any different? "I was just following orders" was not and is not an excuse to excuse criminal behavior.

[S1m0n]

Exactly. Torture is the kind of terrorism that governments use upon the governed. Which is why they had hicks like Lynndie England and her boyfriend dishing it out at abu Ghraib: that wasn't interrogation, because she wasn't an interrogator, and the prisoners didn't know anything anyway.

[edwcorey]

The government is a nest of vipers. Too many professional politicians. And too many agencies beyond the reach of the law.

[tatianalensky]

no one is above the law. Not even an anointed Queen.

[coultersnemesis]

nowadays, no. but weren't the royals 'sovereigns' back in the days? England, with its..what document was it?...i think England during British Liberal Enlightenment and rise of republican radical were the first to force the King to sign a document committed him to some laws. Baby steps, i guess.