Waterboarding Our Sacred Rights

President Bush on Saturday vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the CIA from "harsh interrogation" methods like waterboarding, which makes bound prisoners feel they are drowning. CIA Director, General Michael Haydn, publicly conceded for the first time in February 2008 that the agency began using waterboarding in 2002 on Al-Qaeda suspects with legal approval from the U.S. Department of Justice. Also last month, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a BBC radio interview, said it is "extraordinary" to assume that the ban on cruel and unusual punishment in the Bill of Rights -- the Constitution's Eighth Amendment -- also applied to "so-called" torture.

But the history behind the Bill of Rights shows that rejecting cruel torments of the body in whatever form is the most natural assumption to be made.

The political and social movement for recognition of human rights began in earnest in the second half of the 18th century, particularly with the Jean Calas Affair in France (1760s): he was broken on the wheel and waterboarded. The Italian politician Cesare Marquis de Beccaria, commenting on the case, proposed making such "torments" of an individual human being a measure of the "contempt of all mankind." In The Invention of Human Rights, Lynn Hunt chronicles how the right to protect the body from torment became the first human right accorded to individuals.

Through the emotional reaction to their violation, human rights became self-evident. This helped to define the concepts of 'individual' and 'humanity' for Enlightenment thinkers, including Voltaire, Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson. These concepts became cornerstones of our moral culture, first inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, then in the US Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and more recently in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Monotheism created the concept of humanity. Before it, people in one culture did not consider those in other cultures as part of a single human kind. However belonging to humanity guaranteed equal rights before God only in Paradise, not on earth. For the religious orders of the day, individual bodies could be butchered, burned at the stake, disemboweled, drawn and quartered, and mutilated and tortured in public spectacles. England only banned burning at the stake in 1790, a year after France abolished all forms of judicial torture. These spectacles were sacrificial displays of individual suffering that were meant to repair the body politic that had been sinned against. The individual sinner would not be reformed or rehabilitated but given over to the crowd as an offering for the greater good. In countries that still publicly administer beheadings, stoning to death, amputation of limbs, flogging and other insults to the body and person, these practices do not generate moral outrage but represent redemption. Hidden torture in detention centers even lacks this redemptive quality.

Ideas of "self-evident," "natural" and "human" rights are anything but inherently self-evident or natural. In the history of our species, cannibalism, infanticide, slavery, racism, and subordination of women were usually more "natural" and "self-evident," while "human" was obscure. Institutionalized cannibalism and infanticide in remote regions ended only in the last half century. Slavery was abolished in Europe and America in the 19th century, lingering in lynchings through America's Jim Crow South into the 1960s. It was only banned in Saudi Arabia and Muscat in 1970, and still is practiced along the fringes of the Sahara. Racism and subordination of women remain, of course, very much a part of the modern world, although in many places they have become less noxious than in the Stone Age.

In the second half of the 19th century, reactionary tribal nationalisms arose that rejected many of the tentative advances in human rights. Two world wars blunted these nationalist paroxysms, leaving a standoff between two conceptions of humanity: one is based on individuals' integrity and liberty; the other continues to sacrifice the individual for the common good (as interpreted by an authoritarian leader). In Humanity, a haunting book on the atrocities of the 20th century, Jonathan Glover describes how Stalinism and Maoism dismissed human rights as sniveling rotten liberalism: Sympathy was discredited: mercy to the enemy was cruelty to the people. The means (sacrifice of individuals) justified the end (the common good).

The Cold War posed an existential threat to our society and to humanity: each side had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, capable of annihilating major segments of one another's population. Nothing remotely resembles this threat today. The wildest dreams of today's terrorists go no further than one or two gun-type uranium bombs of one to ten megatons. I have interviewed terrorists, and those who would be, from remote jungle islands of Indonesia to the desert shores of Morocco, in Pakistan and the Middle East. None have the means or competence to acquire such a weapon, although some future terrorist group different from any in existence today could. The worst-case scenario entails many thousands dead, deaths, not millions or billions. However horrid this scenario, it does not justify the hysterical response of a cowered government whose security measures against individuals exceed those of the Cold War.

What makes human rights increasingly self-evident is the changing cultural conditions that cause us to empathize with individuals who are at liberty to choose, think and prosper in their own right, independent of any group or creed they may belong to. It is a measure of our civilization's progress that makes us sensitive to human rights violations, even in places that we can barely place on the map. Our shared concept of humanity leads us to empathize with all decent individuals, respecting their integrity as autonomous agents, as long as those actions do not impinge on our right to do the same.

As part of this shared faith, we demand due process even for those who harm the human rights of others. Yet, further progress is not guaranteed. In times of national stress, without firm moral leadership, we risk succumbing to the residual appeal of caveman revenge or the summary justice of the Ancient Middle East (where an 'eye for an eye' threatens to make the whole world blind). It takes conscious, sometimes brave acts to resist the primal allure of expressing collective anger by violating the sanctity of other individuals' bodies -- or of becoming impassive as others violate bodies that we should see as the homes of free-willed and free-thinking souls.

America is currently caught in a battle between the competing rhetorics of homeland tribalism and of humanity grounded in our shared monotheistic faith. Given our singular military and cultural power in today's world, no less than the future of 250 years of human rights development rests on how this internal American battle is resolved. Americans sense that this is a fateful election for our republic; they may not realize how important it is for the world as a whole. We are playing our own part in a continuing struggle that first led to a Declaration of Independence and then empowered those who fought for human rights around the world.

The world is beginning to view our country not as a hope and home for the free but through the lens that shot the infamous photos of Amercian soldiers brutalizing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. As one top U.S. General in the Multi National Force in Iraq recently told me: We have turned around 180 degrees to show respect for any of the detainees in our care: respect for the culture, for the religion and for the history of the place where our compounds are. But what those few did [at Abu Ghraib] will probably be the images best remembered of this war for a hundred years from now. Reputation, like life itself, is a complex affair that is difficult to sustain but simply to destroy. Mr. Bush has further reduced the moral reputation of the presidency and the country by allowing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. These violate the basic principles upon which the American Republic was founded regarding the sanctity of the individual -- principles that have served as the template for all subsequent elaborations of human rights around the globe.

Shortly before the end of the Civil War, a private in the 1st New York artillery wrote in a letter home that the sacrifice of his friends who "died fighting against cruelty and oppression" had been worth the terrible price of what would be America's bloodiest war. A captain in 47th Ohio wrote to his ten-year old son that his absence from home to fight the battles of our country would be meaningless unless "the children growing up will be worthy of the rights that I trust will be left for them." Jefferson and Lincoln believed that the rights for which our nation fought were the rights of humanity -- that the "sacred purpose" for which our nation came into being was to secure those rights for all, even for those who are against us. We should ask no less of our political leaders and appointees.

Comments

[silenttristerosempire]

I love how Bush lies about terror attacks being foiled by torture, I'm not aware of any terror attacks being foiled by this President, in fact I seem to recall that the 911 attacks happened on his watch. Has anyone seen the latest round of Abu Garib pictures? Its really gruesome stuff. Will someone please tell me how the human rights abuses documaented at Abu Gharib contributed to the security of America? Can anyone tell me why more than 90% of the original deatinees at AG were quietly released? Could it be because they were falsley accused? Does anyone think its odd that we still don't know many of the significant details regarding the 911 attacks, primarily due to obstruction of the investigation by the Bush administration. Yet we are being asked to give up our Constitutional rights, privacy, and protection from government sanctioned torture by some of the most incompetent untrustworthy people ever to hold power in this country? Why was the Patriot Act written before 911? Why was the Iraq War planned in detail before 911? Why were the waterboarding videos destroyed? I wonder what questions they were being asked? Maybe trying to see what they knew about some secret 911 facts? Why haven't Bush & Cheney been impeached for flagrant criminal behavior? Is there no accountablilty for high crimes any more?

[Artos]

It should come as no surprise that we have a President that supports the use of Waterboarding and that we have yet another Attorney General who will not come out 100% with the judgement that waterboarding is torture. Furthermore it should come as no surprise that our Congress would continually vote in favor of any bills that are destructive to all that our Constitution held dear. We are beset with hypocrisy. Even a goodly portion of the American public supports the idea that whatever works to prevent further terrorist attacks against us is perfectly all right.
The affliction that has overtaken American is the self same affliction that all nations which have achieved military superiority fall victim to. A grandiose notion that everyone else will do as they wish either because of fear or because they "respect" their right to provide exclusive leadership. I think that we are going down that same road and that those of us who have better judgment will find ourselves dragged along against our will by the self proclaimed Alphas in our society to our mutual self imposed doom. I think that unless the traditionally passive liberals of our society become a lot more vocal we are nothing but enablers no less than the passive wife who enables an abusive husband.
I think that a simple test is that for anyone who espouses the use of Waterboarding or any other form of torture, should volunteer to be subjected to the torture themselves and then we can see whether they would still support it use. I think our President, his Vice- President and all the Republicans in Congress as well as any Democrats who feel agreeable to torture should be the first to try it out. Unless they would be willing to subject themselves to it they should not be allowed to subject anyone else to it. Simple as that.

[Deidroni]

Bush has gotten away with torture. He has broken the law. And he acts above the law in his continued warrantless wiretapping.

He gets away with criminal behavior because our House of Representatives are too scared to do their jobs and start IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS.

We all must call for impeachment to PRESERVE OUR CONSTITUTION.

[jmaycock]

I second that. And may I add that the article itself is written brilliantly. It should be required reading for every school goer in America. The time is critical, and therefore the time to act is now. Contact your congressmen and senators and demand that America stops torturing prisoners NOW. While you are at it demand that they do all in their power to ensure that the crazed neo-cons DON'T INVADE IRAN....

[Locksley]

ABORTION - waterboarding the Declaration of Independence's pledge to protect "our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honor."

Convenience, selfishness and entitlement trumps sacred honor every time among secular progressives.

[silenttristerosempire]

War is good, & sex is bad, eh Locksley? Our Founding Fathers were secular and progressive. You should read them sometime. I'm not sure that a clump of undifferentiated cells were being addressed in the Declaration of Independence. They were probably talking about viable living human beings, you know, the kind you guys like to lock up or send off to die on the battlefield. Sacred honor? Its a good thing we live in a Secular Democracy, or kooks like you would get to dictate what is "moral" to the rest of us.

[markusmarkus]

Nice try, troll.

Abortion is a medical procedure, torture is....................torture.
Abortion is between a woman, her doctor and her God. Torture is between a prisoner and the state.
Abortion is performed by a medical doctor who's is acting in the what s/he believes is the best interest of the patient. Torture is performed by without regard to the tortured person's interests at all.
Abortion is performed many times to save the life of the mother. Torture has never been proven to save lives.
Abortion typically causes harm (kills) a a fetus who is not able to live outside the womb. Torture causes harrm (to our nation) all the time.

Locksley, the world is not black and white, as "right to lifers" seem to believe. Go thump a bible or something.

[gdkzen]

"Monotheism created the concept of humanity. Before it, people in one culture did not consider those in other cultures as part of a single human kind."

Dear Dr. Atran,

I cannot find a single instance of proof in your post to support your above claim, and while I cannot prove that monotheism did not create the concept of humanity, there is substantial evidence that if it created the concept, then it did not maintain it. In the last one hundred years we have seen ample proof that monotheism has not stopped cultures (particularly between cultures of differing monotheistic faiths) from viewing each other as outside a "single human kind".

Furthermore, I would assert that the preposterous notion that a supernatural law exists which transcends natural law is not a bar against human cruelty. The greatest bar against human cruelty is a sense of empathy and compassion. I would suggest that over the last several decades, research has shown that these things in fact descend from a biological source and not a spiritual one.

[rixhex56]

I think the concept of "humanity" is a philosophical concept, not a religious concept. Religion is, in itself, one of the greatest assaults to "humanity" in the history of man.

[Artos]

Religion is nothing more than the attempt by some, to manipulate the fears and superstitions of others, to in some way benefit themselves. Sacrifices (Grain, livestock , wine in ancient times) and tithes( in modern times) are the means by which they scam others into willing giving the manipulators the means to enjoy life and luxury without having to do any meaningful labor.

[realistic2008]

Bush and Chenney should publicly demonstrate in front of live audiences how it works and how much truth we can get out of them and when is all said and done to tell US why it is not torture and why they lied.

[Oldchef]

Hear, hear. Let's have Bush and Cheney volunteer to be waterboarded and see if they think it harmless when it's done to them.

[realistic2008]

How many more articles of impeachment does Congress needs? I can't wait for the time when Bush is brought to La Hague and face justice.

[Artos]

I agree that they should be as well as both of the recent Attorney Generals. We demanded justice be done at Nuremberg against the Nazis and we should have the integrity to look inward and expect the same of our own leaders. When the time comes we should willingly hand them over and show the world that no one, not even our own leaders are above justice and the rule of law. To do otherwise would make all of us into hypocrites. If our Congress, whether it be Democrats or Republicans, refuse to act properly than they should all be held in contempt and forced from office or incarcerated as well. They would all share responsibility and treated accordingly.

[fortyniner]

Before the 2000 election, I read that candidate Bush declared: What this country needs is a dictator!, or something quite similar. Alarmed, I tried to spread the word to liberals. They were very patronizing in their reactions; they chuckled, and their expressions were priceless!

Earlier that year, at the time of the primaries, some of us were moanin' and groanin' about the lack of testosterone in the leaders of the democratic party. For example, we winced at Sen. Gephart, (D/Mo.) who practically swooned as he mentioned Barbra Streisand, on national tv.
Now, you know what people think about white men who love broadway musicals, don't you? Well, it's the same with the adoration of BS by white liberals. Our group saw red flags; and we continued our moanin' and groanin', sayin' that Truman, et al, were probably rollin' over in their graves!

Now it's eight yrs. later. We see the dictator wannabe become the real lthing, with the help of the Supreme Court.

I, for one, still try to spread the word among progressive voters, not caring anymore about their condescending attitude.
I'll only vote for the democrat candidate if he happens to be Obama. It will be a vote against Hillary, and all those who supported the illegal invasion of a country that had little or nothing to do with 9/11; then practically dismissed the votes of independent voters in the last election, by caving in to the dictator, er, the decider!

[Artos]

I share your regrets, I have also been spreading that word and thankfully some have listened, but unfortunately not enough. We live in a time when Americans simply cannot get there mind around the possibility that it could in fact happen here. We have been insulated from so much of the rest of the world for so long that now we just cannot face reality,although these things go on in the rest of the world every day of the year, and we read about it in our papers or see it on TV.

[Troubledgoodangel]

The inhumanity of death penalty is the best argument in favor of corporal punishment! The whole world despises the U.S. for our electric chairs! Why? Because we tolerate millions of crimes that hurt society and scare people for life alongside with death penalty, but we oppose the corporal punishments that would prevent those millions of crimes and those electrocutions! In short, we choose crime and death, instead of civility and life!

[Troubledgoodangel]

Scott Atran's article on "our sacred rights not to be tortured" is onesided and intellectually faulty! There is abject torture, like the torture at Abu Ghraib, and a torture that can save millions of lives! There is torture, like spanking, which forms a moral conscience in millions of children, and a sadistic torture for pleasure we see on pornographic blogs. One torture saves lives and redeems; the other degrades human beings! To paint the two with one brush is irresponsible in this age of terrorism and school violence! Imagine the following scenario. Two bearded men are caught by the police. They have been implicated in a bombing of the Pakistani embassy in New York, and are turned to the U.S. authorities. The first man has a change of heart and confesses that his companion has placed an atomic suitcase bomb somewhere in New York, before attempting to leave for Pakistan, ready to go off in the next two hours. Lest the suitcase is discovered, it will kill millions. But his companion won't talk for he knows that the U.S. law prohibits torture! The question becomes: is the law more important, or the millions of innocent lives to be lost? A public debate ensues: the Democrats say yes; the Republicans say no. But, alas, a wise republican police chief decided to give the bearded man a little more water than he would want. He knows it's a crime and that his career is at stake, but he needs to save millions, including his family that lives in Brooklyn. The man leads the police to the suitcase, and the bomb is diffused. Postscriptum: the bearded man has survived the waterbording ... and is now suing the police chief for violating his "sacred rights not to be tortured."

[jhNY]

Wow! I didn't know Jack Bauer was out of rehab. This farfetched one-in-a-million scenario out of tv fantasyland cannot possibly stand serious scrutiny as the basis of official US policy, and yet, as long as our fears get the best of our brains, we can count on reading some variant of this stuff as if it has value, which it manifestly does not.

See what the FBI says about torture and Al Quaida. All the good information they have came from suspects who decided to cooperate with their interrogators. All the bad info, which has called intelligence operatives to chase their tails and swamp gas and other will-o-the-wisps, came from subjects of 'enhanced' interrogation techiniques-- torture.

[Artos]

Just as the saying goes " it is the Victors who write the History books" so also is it true that it is the wielder of the big stick who can sit in moral judgement and decide when torture is for a good cause versus a bad cause. Who will say then nay or can for that matter. Only the victims can say with any real substance. Unfortunately they may well be dead or have very little ability to voice their complaints.The excuse of potentially saving millions is trite. Especially since we can never know whether it would or wouldn't have. You would make the assumption that it did regardless.

[rixhex56]

Artos,

You point out that Troubledgoodangel would "...make the assumption that it (the torture) did (save millions) regardless." His entire stance is based on speculation.

Troubledgoodangel speculates that spanking "forms a moral conscience in millions of children". There is no evidence to support this claim. Conscience is not merely learned, but is an inherent trait in human character, which develops later in life, that perhaps benefits from cultural guidance to some extent. However, there are many children who are spanked and do not develop "a moral conscience".

If we only speculate, we can just as validly argue that torture will produce unreliable information that very possibly could distract from the real act, or from actual information needed.

There is more substantial evidence to support the latter speculation that torture produces unreliable information. It is well known that people will confess to almost anything, regardless of truthfulness, under duress.

[richw23]

It's hard to "empathize" for those both now and historically is difficult. The idea of inflicting torture makes my skin crawl. It seems to me that only the demonization of "those who aren't us" through tribalism and religion could overcome what seems to me a natural human inclination to empathize. I'm an atheist so religion is not an influence. I can't step outside myself to understand, but slavery, torture, and indifference to suffering are hard to stand regardless of zeitgeist.

[twgbonehead]

While I agree almost totally with your post, there is a distinction that I think you need to make, which you have not. "Cruel and unusual punishment" should apply to PUNISHMENT, that is, a penalty for proven wrongdoing under the laws of the land. Interrogation, suspicion, questioning, investigation; these activities should be held to a HIGHER standard.

Funny how upset we got about the caning of an American citizen a few years ago. Convicted. In a public trial. Offered a chance to leave the country and never return (thereby escaping the punishment). Universally (assuming your universe is the USA) decried as "Absolutely inhuman", and the entire country went totally nuts over it.

Funny how we view flogging as an inhumane punishment, but we view the death penalty, or imprisonment (subject to rape and exposure to AIDS) as humane. A friend of mine, born in the middle east, explained his amazement to me something like the following:

If you're sentenced to a flogging, it hurts like hell, it's very embarrassing and degrading, and it cuts your skin and bruises your body. But you go home, heal, in a few days, and have a chance to go back to your job and still feed your kids. And you are VERY unlikely to make the same mistake twice, because IT HURTS!!!. This is the American idea of inhumane punishment.

The American idea of humane punishment is that you are locked up for a long time (during which you most likely lose your job and livelihood) are exposed to a violent community of sexual predators, and are much more at risk of getting AIDS. Your family is punished along with you. This is our "humane" punishment.

Am I advocating torture? NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

But Scalia, in his clever legalese, is absolutely correct. The standards regarding torture have nothing to do with the standards involving legal punishment. The standards that cover interrogation MUST be MUCH MORE RESTRICTIVE than those regarding punishment.

"Otherwise, the Terrorists win." (c)2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008 RNC America

[Robster]

As Bill Clinton implied; do it but don't get caught (water torture). And I have no doubt there are enemies of the left that would warrent in the eyes of the left the same treatment- it's a matter of who you think is your enemy.

[frank1569]

Look - there is no such thing as "waterboarding." There is only WATER TORTURE. And if we ever expect anything to "change," then we need to stop getting sucked into using "their" frame to gloss over their heinous actions.

Waterboarding, surfboarding, bodyboarding, wakeboarding, snowboarding... no wonder The People aren't screaming for the Loonitary Decider's head - they think he's just trying to increase the 2008 Olympics by one event.

Reframe, now! WATER TORTURE. Repeat until it sticks.

[Hartal]

Yes, a most thought provoking piece.

I wonder though how strong the link is between monotheism and the idea of one humanity each member of which is deserving of equal respect.

I am sure that there has been a lot of scholarly debate about this, so I wish Atran would tell us something of the criticisms of this linkage and why he rejects them.

I would have thought that the idea of universal rights comes from the development of market relations which depends on everyone having an equal right to enter into and exit from contracts.

That is, it seems to me that universal human rights is part and parcel of general market relations, not monotheistic belief which existed for a long time before there was a conception of universal human rights.

The Huffingtonpost ran to my mind the most important commentary on the election so far, the statement by Naomi Wolf on why Obama's record on civil liberties and human rights was the strongest among the candidates.

This sealed my decision for me; in fact it motivated to become actively involved.

Thanks to the Huffington post.