From outside the box

When I first heard about our military practicing water boarding on prisoners, I thought it meant they were using them to ride the waves at Malibu. It didn't make sense to me, so I investigated further and was shocked to learn that it was a form of torture! America using torture? What about the Geneva Convention? What about our code of moral ethics that we have always prided ourselves on, those Christian values that lie at the core of the heart and soul of our great country? And if we did practice torture, were we not descending to the same level as the barbarian terrorists we were at war with?

To any decent self professed liberal such as myself, this should be a no brainer....it's just wrong! But is it? My dilemma is this....I had to ask myself if I could ever justify using torture on another human being. And my answer was yes, I could. If one of my kids were kidnapped, the cops couldn't find them, and I was able to get a hold of one of the persons involved who knew where my child was and they weren't talking, what would I do? Could I justify torture if that were the only way to get them to talk, if it would save my child's life? In a effing heartbeat! Bring on the blow torch and the ice pick, we got some work to do.

So how can I say that torture would be admissible as a way to save my child but not as a way to save the lives of soldiers or to stop a terrorist attack against innocent civilians? I can't. I want to but I can't. The problem with allowing torture, as is the problem with most liberties given to any arm of the law, is that it has the potential, and the likelihood, of being misused and abused. What an oxymoron - abusing the use of torture! It sounds gruesome to even talk about what situations would justify the use of torture. But the reality is, we are at war, and maybe torture is a necessary evil that needs to be addressed. The ethical questions of when to use torture, who should OK the torture, what types of torture are we talking about, goes on and on and on. I am glad that I'm not on any panel making those kinds of decisions.

It would not surprise me to learn that we have always used torture in one form or another. We have always had a no assasination policy and yet there are government agencies that are not accountable to any laws. Do they assasinate? They can if they want to. And how do you define torture? Is it not torture when a prisoner in an American prison gets thrown into a small enclosure for 6 months with no outside contact? Or do we just call that punishment? Where do you draw the line between punishment, strong arm manipulation, and torture? Isn't it really about us American citizens coming to terms, being forced to recognize, and ultimately define what torture is? We are at that crossroads.

So I have to ask myself, what does it say about me, a peace loving old hippie, who could conceivably condone the use of torture? Am I just being a realist? Am I not what I pretend to be? I have acknowledged the fact that I am not a pacifist, but am I ready to acknowledge the fact that I could condone the use of such measures that challenge the very fabric of our national morality, as well as my own? Is accepting the use of torture just acknowledging that the simpler times of right and wrong, black and white, are fading shadows of an ever changing reality as our world becomes more complicated and moves into wider and grayer zones where ethics are no longer written codes but ideas to be challenged and debated?

And it's not only torture that falls into this category. We have abortion, cloning, stem cell research, euthanasia, medical marijuana, testing animals in labs, and a ton of other complicated issues that, well, they just won't go away. I do not like what I feel about torture, but on the other hand, I have to be honest with myself. I guess I have some pondering to do....