Nathaniel

Shockey

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May 20, 2009

Torture: Good for Business?

I hadn’t traveled far into my adult life before realizing that the difference between my rules and the country’s rules must be different. On account of numerous references throughout both the Old and New Testaments, I cannot condone homosexuality. But I wouldn’t suggest legislating against all homosexual practices. My wife and I regularly give to the church, but I don’t agree with forcing everyone to give. I am strongly opposed to premarital sex, but I still don’t think we should pass a law against it. And concerning abortion, while I think it is wrong, I’m less and less convinced that outlawing it altogether is going to have the desired effect. The reason? Pragmatism. That’s also why I can’t entirely denounce torture.

Pragmatism is a really interesting word. It comes from the Greek word, “pragmatikos” which means “versed in business,” which comes from the word “pragma” or “prassein” which mean “to do; act; civil business, or deed.” If one takes the time to combine all these words and phrases, he’ll discover the redneck expression, “Git’er dun.”

Of all the ways to consider a country, I find that the most encompassing and accurate is as a business. A country cannot be led strictly by idealism. Any artist knows that a slight watering down of ideals is almost always necessary to please the employer. To stay in business, to please a larger group, especially one that includes every demographic, especially one as diverse as the U.S., it is necessary for all of us to leave a few of our ideals at the door. The alternative is extremely bad for business. An unhealthy business goes bankrupt. (And if we all stay tuned, we may just find out what happens when a once-thriving country goes bankrupt.)

So back to torture: The main question we have to ask is whether or not it is pragmatic, or to put it differently, is it good for business? There are two pieces of information necessary to answer this question. First, does torture work? You may have heard it said that torture never works. Why wouldn’t a tortured person just lie? Well, unless one has ever been tortured, to offer up this simple answer as authoritative is dumber than stupid. So we have to look at facts. In a recent column by Charles Krauthammer, he presented the following evidence:

(Former CIA Director) George Tenet said that the "enhanced interrogation" program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from "the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together."

Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, wrote that, "as late as 2006 . . . fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of Al-Qaeda came from those interrogations." Even Dennis Blair, President Obama's director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded "high-value information."

Asserts Blair's predecessor, Mike McConnell, "We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened."

The last two directors of the CIA and the last two directors of national intelligence, one of them a Democrat, agree that torture has saved many lives. Does that make it right? No, of course not. But it may make it right for a country.

The second piece of information necessary to answer the question of whether torture is good for business is whether it is the will of the people. To the best of my knowledge, there is no authoritative poll on this issue. The poll question would have to ask about different kinds of torture, such as waterboarding, and about also some of the more brutal techniques used throughout history.

The majority of recorded methods of torture are just downright wrong. I’d rather not mention them because it makes me nauseous. But I think that most Americans, when presented with a practice such as waterboarding and the results it has yielded, would say it is OK as long as we are reasonably sure a given suspect has knowledge that can save lives. Personally, if a loved one was held hostage and I had one of the bad guys in my possession, I’m not sure I would stop at waterboarding. There are all kinds of gray areas, which is the main reason this issue is so controversial.

Although the Bible never mentions torture (or waterboarding), any form of “enhanced interrogation” is probably in conflict with biblical ideals. But to put it as simply as I can, some forms of torture are probably good for business.

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