Tortured Logic

Apropos of the Sonny-Schwenkler Torture Tussle, I’ll mention briefly the following as non inconsistent positions to take on torture and torture-related issues:

(1) Torture banned by treaties to which we are a party should not be practiced for any reason.

(2) The secret use of torture in outrageously extraordinary circumstances is probably inevitable.

(3) One dunk may not be torture, but repeated waterboarding is.

(4) Unpleasant treatment can and does fall short of torture, even at some extremes.

(5) Such treatment nonetheless may come in for serious criticism on its own terms.

(6) And pose dangers for abuse that may not be adequately manageable.

The main problem here is that foreigners have certainly sought asylum in the US on grounds of political persecution relying on testimony of abuse that closely echoes the sorts of non-torture measures the US itself appears now to be taking with at least some regularity. So even if those measures are defensible on their own terms, they may create or exacerbate broader problems that, in the balance, militate against those practices. That’s about as far as I want to push this for now.