Conservatives Without Conscience

In October and November of 2005, Senator McCain offered his amendments to the Defense Department’s authorization bill and its appropriations bill to prohibit the United States from engaging in torture. This was legislation that could not be vetoed without halting the war in Iraq. The first McCain-sponsored amendment was titled “Uniform Standards for the Interrogation of Persons Under the Detention of the Department of Defense.” It simply stated that persons “in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense” can only be interrogated pursuant to the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation (which prohibits torture). The second McCain-sponsored amendment was titled “Prohibition On Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government.” This provision required that individuals in the custody of, or under the physical control of, the United States government, regardless of nationality or physical location, not be subjected “to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Amazingly, when Cheney learned of these amendments, he tried to block them. Who could conceive of an American vice president demanding that Congress give the president the authority to torture anyone, under any circumstances? Yet that is exactly what Cheney wanted. Fortunately, Congress—finally—showed some institutional pride and told Cheney that it would not countenance torture, under any circumstances. It was also remarkable that Senate majority leader Bill Frist set aside his Hippocratic Oath and unsuccessfully attempted to use procedures to prevent Senator McCain from offering the amendments. Finally, the White House threatened that President Bush, who had not vetoed a single piece of legislation since assuming office, would do so for any bill that contained McCain’s amendments, even if it meant shutting off funds for the Department of Defense (a move that would have posed no small threat to national security). This threat announced, in effect, that the authorization to torture was more important than the well-being of the nation.

The administration’s public explanation for its opposition to McCain’s amendments, as made by those few willing to promote these actions, bordered on pathetic. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) claimed during the Senate debate on the amendments that they would have a reverse impact, resulting in more torture. Stevens reached this conclusion by claiming that the international teams that pursue terrorists, being aware of restrictions on Americans, would not give the United States custody of terrorists that they found. This contention is so full of holes that it is barely necessary to refute it. Not all groups that search for terrorists are international, and in fact, that is the exception to the rule. And typically, Americans command these undertakings, so the contention that prisoners accused of terrorism would somehow be taken away from America and tortured—against America’s will—by other nations is absurd. In fact, the current practice is exactly the opposite: Through what is called “rendition,” America now allows its own suspects to be turned over to countries that torture with impunity, and that do not honor the kinds of rights the U.S. Constitution guarantees. This practice is also contrary to international law.

Reports indicated that Dick Cheney’s favorite argument—the one he made in trip after trip to closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill to get authority, at minimum, for the CIA to be able to torture—is the old “ticking bomb” gambit. So frequently has this specious argument been employed to justify torture that it deserves to be shot down with more than a passing reference. The argument runs like this: A nuclear bomb has been planted in the heart of a major American city, and authorities have in custody a person who knows where it is located. To save possibly millions of lives, would it not be justified to torture this individual to get the necessary information to stop it? Absolutely. Is not this lesser evil justified? Of course it is. And this argument is a wonderful means to comfort those who have moral problems with torture. Its beauty is that once you concede there are circumstances in which torture might be justified, morally and legally (through what criminal law calls the defense of necessity: that an act is justified to save lives), you are on the other side of the line. You’ve joined the torture crowd. To paraphrase Bush, you have joined the evildoers.