That's the opinion expressed here in this Slate Fray piece
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112101/.
Take a moment to read it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
I only need to quote this:
Why does no one have the courage to stand behind an obvious principle--we need torture to win the war on terror?
It's a really succinct view of what I'm up against intellectually every day here in the Triad. We haven't just started loosing the torture debate. We're rapidly loosing our liberal democracy.
Read on, and let's see what we can do.
No, I don't believe 51% of Americans believe this line as it stands. I believe 55% of Triad residents and citizens believe this statement. I know, as an lower-level executive at a corrupt, multi-million dollar corporation in Winston-Salem, and former lay leader within my church, I have daily contact and conversation with many of our economic and religious elite. Unfortunately, I'm also just maybe, kinda, sorta, part of this really, really conservative society. I can do some good here, but combative stances aren't goind to win, just because they're combative.
So, how can I help change this mindset?
First, what is this mindset?
Let me categorize choice quotes from the post that I hear permutations of daily and hourly:
1) We could do better, but there will be those "broken eggs." So, sorry about all those almost-innocent brown people:
In any event, if we could separate the innocent from the rogue among detainees, we would target our torture with precision just as we would eliminate collateral damage from our bombs if we could. We are not God, so we do the best we can.
2) Does it matter? We're killing them anyway:
However, ask yourself this--is it any consolation to our victims that we got to know them before breaking their limbs or burning their skin?
3)They're all terrorists over there. They reject our freedom/lifestyle:
I know at this point even my conservative brethren will step in to say that our bombs are directed at armed combatants on the ground, who are still fighting, while torture victims being disarmed prisoners, are no longer a danger to us. This is precisely the kind of obtuseness which drives me up the wall.
4)It's highly useful, we aren't doing it for pleasure:
Nobody, least of all President Bush or Secretary Rumsfeld, is advocating torture for retributive or sadistic purposes. Its potential usefulness is as an information gathering tool--valuable information that may help us win the war.
5)It makes us safer:
Of course the threat from captured enemy has already been diffused, but their comrades are still out there plotting more 9/11's against us, and torture is aimed at reducing that outstanding threat.
6)It's the liberals that make you believe torture isn't effective:
There is the pragmatic counter-argument that torture simply isn't effective as a method, that the tortured will tell you whatever you want to hear. This is typical liberal tripe, dreamt up in Manhattan cocktail parties. First, a bunch of false leads bundled with some genuine ones is still better than no leads at all.
7)The bastards do it to us:
People who are willing to blow themselves up to bring down our buildings and kill women and children are not going to be deterred in their treatment of captive soldiers, no matter what we do.
8)It doesn't make us evil:
Finally, there is the New Age mumbo-jumbo that opening the door to torture will corrupt our souls and sully our greatness as a nation. To these folks, I say: put down the bong and find a job. Our souls survived deep frying Dresden or flattening the Vietnamese countryside, and it can survive some regulated electric shocks sent through a few genitals.
9)It's the liberals that say this will cause the end of the world:
There is the (slightly) more sophisticated argument that revulsion to torture is a psychological state which provides useful restraint in our internal affairs. If we lose it, the cops will start routinely torturing suspects, men will start beating their wives, parents will resort to corporal punishments, and all hell will break loose, generally speaking. One should know better than to pay heed to the cataclysmic nightmare scenarios the left regularly dreams up. In the past, we have had to do some nasty things in the defense of freedom, and we have survived spiritually each time.
So, how does one combat these arguments? Here's the challenge: It cannot rely on good logic, truth and fact, and a few other principles listed below. Why? I know these people. Logic and truth alone do not work (else with the level of religosity amongst many of them, they would have categorically opposed the war). The rispostes must appeal to my red-state peoples in a way that appeases their inner visions and conceptions.
Logic? No good. My people don't thrive off of logic, they thrive off of "common sense" and "meritous intelligence" (the fact that I'm VP of accounting means I'm more intelligent than you, even though I can't do basic math). These people have their own view of sense, and are VERY cemented to it.
Truth? No good. Facts are inconvenient to a good narrative. My people cannot believe that Iraqis are anything like "us." The sense is "Iraqis kill us, and we don't kill us, so Iraqis are nothing like us. In fact, they are opposite of us."
Also, I can't use anything that could be called off the cuff as "Moral relativism." That includes real moral relativism, and other cross-cultural assessments such as, "wouldn't YOU act the same way in their position?" They must have learned this defense from talk radio or something, but the answers always are "You can't say that, we aren't like them, they aren't us, blab, blab, yadda, blab." Ignoring the fact this isn't moral relativism, it's still a non-starter. There is no pushing consideration of others on these folks.
I need snark-free intellectual ripostes. Such as:
3) Yes, we are killing them. But creating generations of angry, orphaned arabs does not make us safer when they can point to the moral relativism of our actions. They will not believe that it is ok for us to torture, and terrorize, but not them. We are, by our actions, encouraging more terrorist action by our cruelty. You can't just kill a few of them, hoping the rest will stop.
So, if you've stayed with me, do you have any suggestions?