Treatment of detainees: Is it moral?

Aggressive interrogations aren't torture, administration supporters say.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
WASHINGTON -- The harsh treatment of "high value" detainees in the war on terror has triggered a wide-ranging debate over the legal, political and diplomatic implications of Bush administration policies. But lost in this debate has been a deeper question: Are American actions moral?
By authorizing coercive interrogation measures against certain prisoners overseas, the Bush administration has made clear that it believes it has a higher duty to attempt to force some individuals to reveal information that might help prevent future terror attacks.
Critics say this hard-line approach aimed at extracting actionable intelligence helped set the stage for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. But aside from the abuses uncovered in Iraq, many question whether it is ever moral to use the intentional infliction of pain to force someone to talk.
Indeed, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from eliciting forced confessions, represents the collective moral judgment of the nation's Founders that such tactics violate the fundamental rights of individuals (at least in criminal cases within the United States).
Sept. 11
But others say the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks have presented new challenges. In a world in which a single terrorist armed with a weapon of mass destruction could kill thousands in an instant, aggressive interrogation tactics are seen as a justifiable act of national self-preservation.
"One cannot question that in the broadest sense, morality lies on the U.S. side in this overall conflict, but that doesn't mean that any means can be used to serve those broader moral ends," says Brad Berenson, a former associate counsel to President Bush. "Americans have to recognize that the threats to the country are exceptionally grave and that our adversaries are exceptionally depraved," he says. "In order to be successful, we need to be tough and do everything within the limits of the law."
Whether the administration's interrogation policy complies with international law is a subject of debate among legal experts. Many analysts say the policies are both illegal and immoral. "I do not believe that the attacks on 9/11 and the horrendous loss of life have created such a change in our moral fiber that we will cast aside the law and use any means to survive," says Scott Silliman, executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics, and National Security at the Duke University School of Law in Durham, N.C. "Running throughout the American spirit is the desire to maintain that moral high ground."
Supporters' argument
Administration supporters say the government's policies have not compromised the moral high ground. U.S. officials are not attempting to justify the kinds of abuses uncovered at Abu Ghraib prison, and they are not seeking approval to use torture. Rather, the administration has authorized aggressive interrogation tactics within an overall policy of treating detainees humanely, these supporters say.
"We are facing people who reject any notion of restraint," says David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
He says the way enemy combatants are treated depends on how they act before being captured. Those who engage in activities that violate the laws of war -- such as launching terror attacks on civilians or carrying out acts of sabotage -- are not entitled to the protections of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. "You will be treated humanely -- no one is going to pull your fingernails out -- but you don't get all the benefits of prisoner-of-war status," Rivkin says. Among those benefits to POWs is a ban on coercive questioning.
Some analysts say any interrogation process that permits a measure of physical abuse puts U.S. officials on a slippery slope. While a short and slight level of physical abuse (such as being subject to cold, darkness, loud noise or sleep deprivation) may not qualify as torture, it does not take long for such treatment to cross the line, analysts say.