“To Legalize Is To Encourage”

DiA responds:

Andrew Sullivan thinks proponents of torture are motivated by vengeance and are more comfortable with the idea of torturing "them" as opposed to "us". There may be some truth to that, but I think if America legalised torture, even if only for specific situations, you would gradually see an erosion of the limits placed on the tactic. As we said in a 2003 leader, "To legalise is to encourage." And, once the taboo is broken, why wouldn't torture proponents follow their argument to its logical conclusion: the widespread use of torture?

But the taboo has been broken.

The premise of the broken taboo, moreover, is that the government can and should torture, even while torture is illegal. This strikes me as far more dangerous. The constant assertion of the government's right to torture anyone it deems aware of "active threats" to the US with no acknowledgment that this means the rule of law is over … carries consequences far greater than legalization and formal withdrawal from Geneva. It gives the government no limits on what it can do; it leaves the decisions about whom to torture to men not laws, it discredits the rule of law culturally, and requires massive hypocrisy, euphemism and outright lies as a critical part of our public discourse.

I find this more dangerous than outright legalization. If we truly believe we have to become barbarians to defeat barbarians – and that is the Cheney view – then we should have the courage of our fascist convictions.