No better than our enemies

I think some Americans sometimes object to the use of torture because (the thinking goes) to engage in it means we've stooped down to the enemy's level. It means we've ceded the moral high ground. It means we've become no better than our enemies.

In fact, that's more or less what Pres. Obama intimated when he signed the order to close down Gitmo.

The fear is, if we win yet become like or worse than our enemies, then have we truly won? If we give in to the Dark Side of the Force (torture) in order to defeat the Sith Lords (terrorists), will we then become Sith Lords (terrorists)? Will Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader?

A similar or related fear centers around "American values." I suppose this refers back to the ideals upon which things like our Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, were founded. If we torture terrorists, then will we erode our own values? Even if we don't become like the terrorists, will we nevertheless have compromised our values in some way? Is torture another slip on the slippery slope toward becoming less "American"?

A few, somewhat disjointed thoughts come to mind. They're meant (hopefully) more as a way to ask the right questions or at least to question along the right lines, not really to provide answers. This is still a work in progress.

That said:

1. First off, these are vague objections. What exactly is meant here? People who put forth such views need to make clear how they define "torture," and better delineate what's morally or ethically objectionable about the various forms of "torture" employed. At a minimum, isn't there a difference between what is publicly perceived as "torture," with its decidedly negative connotation, and what is officially used by the US gov't in their "interrogation techniques"?
   
   
2. Not to mention they likewise ought to demonstrate that "torture" is actually occurring in a significant enough sense to warrant this sort of moral or ethical objection. Is it?
   
   
3. An assumption made here is that we should not only be moral or ethical in the war against terrorism but that we should in a sense be (for lack of a better term at the moment) hyper-moral or hyper-ethical.
   
   
   1. Saying that we're no better than our enemies if we engage in torture leads us to ask another question: precisely what moral or ethical standards do our enemies follow? What's their moral and ethical rubric? And, once we have a working idea of what it is and what it entails and so forth, so long as we don't sink to their moral or ethical depths, or rather, so long as we are at least a notch above their highest moral or ethical threshold with regard to torture, then we are morally or ethically better than our enemies, aren't we? And if that's the case, then why the outcry against torture? I'm not saying I'd agree with the question or where it might lead. I'm only responding to the objection on its own grounds.
      
      
   2. Perhaps it's true the United States can win the war against the terrorists and jihadis without the use of "torture." But just because we can, does that then mean we should? Should we limit ourselves or tie our own hands like this? For example, even if we do win without using torture, let's say the victory will have come at a greater cost to us than it would have if we had used torture (e.g. more innocent civilian lives might be lost). Would our moral restraint in the use of torture therefore be reasonable let alone justifiable if more Americans were lost than needed to be lost?
      
      However, what if we didn't win? What if instead we lost the war because we didn't use certain forms of "torture," but retained the moral high ground? Would our gaining the higher moral ground by keeping our hands clean from torture mean anything if it also meant there wouldn't be future generations of Americans to cherish and safeguard American values? I might be begging the question though.
   
   
4. Are there differences in how we should apply ethics during peace-time and during war-time? If so, how so? And if so, then it's possible we haven't necessarily lost or compromised our moral or ethical values, isn't it?
   
   
5. Is "torture" "un-American"? Is "torture" in conflict with American values? If so, how so? For instance, is water-boarding "cruel and unusual punishment"? Is prolonged sleep deprivation un-Constitutional?
   
   Historically, haven't Americans successfully used "torture" on enemies to, say, extract necessary military information which would save thousands of lives? (BTW, wrong uses of torture do not necessarily illegitimize all torture, such as the rightful uses of certain forms of torture, assuming there are rightful uses of certain forms of torture.)
   
   Obviously, again, much here depends on us establishing working categories for what does and what does not constitute "torture," for starters.
   
   
6. Do enemy combatants have any rights under the U.S. Constitution? They aren't American citizens. Not that I'm advocating "cruel and unusual punishment" by any means, not even on enemy combatants, but should American rights apply to non-American enemy combatants or even traitors within our ranks (haven't traitors forfeited their rights by betraying their nation)? If they do have rights, then why do or should they? And to what extent? After all, even prisoners in the American penal system have diminished rights. Whether or not enemy combatants have rights would figure into how we are to treat them, which in turn would figure into whether we are behaving morally and ethically towards them when we treat them in certain ways.
   
   But if we're not limiting the debate solely to American rights and values, but expanding it to include values and rights universal to all human beings (e.g. "inalienable rights," "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," etc.), then there are other considerations. One might be whether people even have such things as "inalienable rights" in the first place, which are concepts derived from a Western European framework and tradition.
   
   Of course, what's fundamentally important to Christians isn't whether something is in accordance with American values or other traditions, per se, but rather whether something is in line with biblical values -- although many American values could be biblical values too.
   
   
7. I wonder whether the notion that if we torture our enemies, then we will become like our enemies, and this is ethically or morally unacceptable, owes something to identity politics? Guilt over perceived wrongs we've supposedly been party to in the Mideast, etc., and wanting to somehow make up for the alleged wrongs, as if there were direct correlations between these things.
   
   Speaking of which, much of this is fed by our enemies. But why should we listen to our enemies when it's not only in their best interest but their stated intention to weaken and harm us by any means necessary, including but not limited to deception?
   
   
8. Sort of related to this, there's sometimes the notion that we don't truly understand our enemies, because if we did, then we could identify with them; and if we identified with them, then we could better bridge the war and violence and perhaps bring peace between ourselves and our enemies. As if we really aren't all that different, and it's primarily a problem in communication and how we relate to one another. We both bleed red. Something like Enemy Mine comes to mind. Diplomacy and various forms of humanitarian aid are the best answers.
   
   If that's the case, then why not extend this sort of attitude to, say, Israel?
   
   In fact, why even bother to frame this in terms of ethics and morality? That to not engage in torture is to take the higher moral ground, when it's apparently not a matter of ethics or morality, at least not primarily in terms of politics, but rather a matter of miscommunication or misunderstanding? I'm possibly very wrong in how I understand and use this, but it almost seems like a kind of reverse or inverted Realpolitik, where strong nations do not pander and kowtow to other strong nations but to weaker "nations," including terrorists?
   
   
9. Sometimes the idea that torture is the moral low road comes hand-in-hand with fear about mistakenly torturing someone who is innocent, who is not a terrorist or somehow affiliated with terrorism. In other words, it's better that ten (or input whatever figure you'd like) guilty persons go free than that one innocent person is wrongly convicted and suffers (as in the movie Rendition). There are a couple of possible responses. But perhaps the most concise is: better for whom?
   
   
10. Technology has its good and bad points. Back in, say, World War II, there wasn't the constant media attention and scrutiny that we have today. Imagine if soldiers on Iwo Jima had MSNBC or CNN following them around with cameras. Or imagine if our POW camps housing Nazi soldiers could be videotaped, uploaded on YouTube, and instantly broadcast to millions of people, spreading like wildfire by word-of-mouth or blog posts or what not until it's eventually picked up by a major news agency. I wonder if at least some of the debate over torture hasn't been exaggerated and blown way out of proportion by a ratings-hungry media?
    
    
11. Isn't there a sort of hypocrisy lurking behind all this? Oftentimes the same people who take issue with torture on moral or ethical grounds, believing torture to make us lesser people, don't take issue or as much issue with other moral and ethical wrongs (e.g. abortion).
    
    Plus, some people seem to take more issue with our methods of "torture" than with our enemies' methods of torture. Or treat the two as if they were one of a kind, as if they were ethically and morally on the same level. As if prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme cold or heat, or even waterboarding (whether or not one agrees with such techniques) performed by trained experts in interrogation and the like and in a controlled environment under strict legal codes is as debased as kidnapping civilians and beheading them or suicide bombers detonating themselves in a crowded public area.
    
    And I notice our enemies rarely question themselves and their actions as much as we do. There's seemingly little or no inner conflict among terrorists in whether sending young people, including women and children, to blow up civilians compromises their ethics or morals. There's no tortured soul (pardon the pun) or even debate over the rightness or wrongness of suicide bombers or the kidnapping and beheading of civilians -- certainly not to our extent.