The Washington Post, on its On Faith website, recently asked panelists representing different religious points of view to address the question, “Is torture ever justified?” The responses are by no means representative of all religious viewpoints on torture (the humanist viewpoint of which I have addressed previously), but nevertheless it was enlightening for me to read some of the different viewpoints and how these commentators feel torture and religion relate to each other.

Christian theologian and philosopher John Mark Reynolds is initially direct on the question, writing, “Torture of any human being is incompatible with the Christian faith.” I hope he’s telling that far and wide, because it appears that not everyone has received the message. However, he goes on to spend most of his short essay wondering whether or not what the United States did actually was, in fact, torture:

A general condemnation of torture does not mean that we already know that what the Bush administration did was torture. Reasonable people can disagree about exactly what torture is and some believe that what the Bush administration ordered in prosecuting the War on Terror was not torture. They should be heard and not ignored, but so far the arguments advanced have not been persuasive.

He does believe, though, that John McCain’s condemnation of the techniques that were employed by the United States during the Bush years indicates that they were probably unacceptable. I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding how anyone can equivocate at all on whether or not pouring water into someone’s lungs, slamming a person into a wall, or any of the other methods that were approved constitute torture or not.

Another Christian theologian, Gabriel Salguero of the Princeton Theological Seminary, also condemns torture and says it is incompatible with Christianity. He points out that great people in history have chosen not to meet the violence of their adversaries with equal violence:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr never used violence although violence was constantly used against him, his home, and the many people in the Civil Rights movement. Did the millions of people who partook in the non-violent marches not understand terror? Nonsense. They chose a different way…Did Jesus not understand the way of terror when he was being crucified on an imperial cross? Nonsense. He chose a different way.

I find it very compelling that, in history, great figures and brave groups of people have stood up to injustice and tyranny without resorting to the techniques of their oppressors. They have held the moral high ground without conceding the battle. I wish that the USA had taken this approach in the face of terrorism rather than quickly employing torture and secret prisons, disregarding the rule of law as if it were an impediment to safeguarding our nation in the face of danger, rather than central to the task.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield wants everyone, on all sides of the issue, to examine it a little more closely:

It’s easy to say that torture is wrong and that whatever tradition we hold dear forbids it. I wish it were that simple. Imagine for a moment that you knew the life of someone you loved; your child for example, would be saved by information extracted by torture. Are you really certain that you might not suddenly find some justification which allowed it “just this once”? Anyone answering “no” too quickly is either kidding themselves or doesn’t know the meaning of loving someone close to themselves.

Although this sounds like he is defending torture, he quickly states that he isn’t; rather, he says:

I am more concerned about the endless moralizing around tough issues which makes them seem too easy too fast. In fact, that’s the style of argument which typifies those who defend the use of torture.

Their arguments pose the question about saving a life as if we could know with certainty beforehand that the torture for which they advocate would save a life in immediate danger. I wish it were that simple, but it rarely, if ever, is.

It’s true that the circumstances under which the Bush administration committed torture were ambiguous, something which the pro-torture side seems loathe to admit. No matter how many times the torture advocates talk about it, we have yet to encounter a so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario where the deactivation code to the bomb needs to be tortured out of some single suspect in custody before an entire city explodes (or something along those lines). Television shows like 24 aside, under the Bush administration torture was committed with much more dubious and certainly less noble goals than extracting the location of a bomb located under the city.

Rabbi Hirschfield’s point about these over-simplistic arguments being used to justify torture is well taken. Nevertheless, I feel that he is trying a little too hard to be balanced here with his consideration for why someone might support torture. Surely, if the life of my child was at stake, I would probably justify any number of horrible things to be done if it might save my child’s life; this hypothetical situation, however, doesn’t add very much to a discussion on human rights. It may provide some perspective on how we react to the idea of torture, but the actual laws that codify the preservation of human rights must be written under more level-headed circumstances than how you would feel if your child’s life was immediately at risk.

The preponderance of opinion from the different religious commentators on On Faith is that torture is wrong. But beyond that point is less agreement over what actually constitutes torture and how the United States should move forward from this point. This level of disagreement is indicative of why we need to rely on secular documents to guide how we move forward on torture. For all the room for discussion in the arena of religion, US and international law is not at all ambiguous on this subject.

Humanists are often accused of practicing cultural relativism because our morality isn’t grounded in either an ancient sacred text or an omnipotent and watchful god. This is untrue. Humanists recognize that ethical values originate in our experiences as human beings. And these values are, as the third version of the Humanist Manifesto states, tested against experience.

It feels a little ridiculous to me that many religious people are so insistent that an ambiguous and contradictory ancient text such as the Bible is necessary to live a good life. I don’t doubt that there may be some insight in there on the subject. But there is plenty of insight in Plato’s writings on Socrates too.

The truth is, this planet of 6.5 billion people has been patching together its ethics from a variety of sources over the centuries, and whether people recognize it or not, a lot of this comes directly from human need and experience. That most humanistic of ethical aphorisms, the Golden Rule (also known as the Ethic of Reciprocity), appears in ancient Greek philosophy and can be found in nearly every major religion. Its universality suggests that over the centuries, humans have tested it against experience and found it to be both useful and desirable.

Humanism historically has relied on the dictate that every individual human being must be treated as having “inherent worth and dignity” (a phrase also taken from the third version of the Manifesto). I read this phrase as having, on the one hand, some roots in the Golden Rule, because we would all like to be treated as having inherent worth and dignity; we would like our humane treatment of others to be reciprocated to ourselves. But treating people this way has a value in and of itself that needs no further justification. It is the recognition of the solidarity of the human species and a rejection of the very relativism humanists are often accused of. It’s like this: human beings deserve humane treatment by virtue of being human; we have no godlike powers to determine who is worthy of humane treatment and who is worthy of being treated as being less than human.

Unfortunately, the recent revelations about the depth of the Bush administration’s torture regime have been distorted through a lens of debate over whether or not the torture was actually effective at producing useful intelligence. The implication (often stated) is that if torture was effective–if any useful intelligence came out of it–then the program would be defensible, that the torture would have been worthwhile.

And people accuse humanists of practicing relativism!

International law is clear on the subject: torture is illegal. It comes down to humanist ethics–there is a way that all humans must be treated simply by virtue of being human. This is the foundation of liberal democracy. It is why the Bill of Rights and international human rights law both spend a great deal of time outlining how those accused of crimes must be treated. There is no provision that criminals (and terrorists) suddenly forfeit all of their rights as human beings because they are accused of a crime.

So debating over whether or not torture “works” is missing the point. The necessary information should have been obtained using lawful techniques of interrogation. The terrorists may behave in a brutal fashion, but isn’t that precisely why we oppose them? Is a world in which brutality is countered with brutality what we desire?

I take comfort in President Obama’s assurances that torture will not be practiced by his administration. But we can’t “move forward” (to use the president’s words) without ensuring that justice is delivered to those responsible for torture.

On the 10th of October I attended Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs symposium titled “The Future of U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the Next Administration.” The morning’s session on religious extremism contained some interesting advice for fighting Islamist terrorism from the Center for American Progress’s William Schulz.

Schulz argued that though there is an undeniable religious element to the Islamist movement, to say that Islam is somehow uniquely conductive to terrorism is misguided. In fact, out of the estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the five countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia (170.3 billion), Pakistan (136 million), Bangladesh (106 million), India (103 million), Turkey (62.4 million); all democracies. In addition, even in Saudi Arabia, with its authoritarian Sharia regime, less than 10 percent of the population had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda and 15 percent had a favorable view of Osama bin Laden.

So, then, how do we fight terrorism within this context? Says Schultz, it’s ineffective to try to coax Islamists to a more moderate religious stance. Rather, we must convince the sympathizers of terrorism–those aforementioned 10 and 15 percent–of the ineffectiveness of terrorism and persuade them to ultimately abandon support (mostly monetary) of terrorists. He enumerated a few DO’s and DON’Ts of this strategy:

DON’T: Conflate uses of terror by some Muslims as terror by all Muslims. Recognize that most Muslims are moderate, peaceful people.

DON’T: Use inflammatory language and tactics against Islam.

DON’T: Play into the terrorists’ hands by spreading democracy at the point of a gun, allying with authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and using torture.

DO: Show terrorism as a dead end.

DO: Embrace moderate Muslims.

DO: Denounce corruption in government.

DO: Renew access to Muslim students who want to study in the United States.

DO: Be flexible on separation of church and state in the Middle East.

DO: Honor results of free elections even when we don’t like them.

Though I do think these are good, practical suggestions and comprehensively constitute a constructive plan for combating terrorism, I’m less convinced that terrorist tactics can be so easily separated from a radical interpretation of Islam that, I’m assuming, supporters of terrorists espouse. For example, if the U.S. were to denounce the Saudi regime, we may convince Islamist terrorists and their supporters that jihad is no longer necessary, but I’m doubtful that we’ll convince them of the illegitimacy of employing terrorism in the first place.

If Islamists and their supporters believe and act upon the notion that suicide bombers are entitled to 70 virgins in the afterlife, I’m not sure that rationalizing terrorism as an ineffective means to an end is possible.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken critic of Islam who moved to the United States to escape death threats, returned to the Netherlands on Monday because the Dutch government said it would no longer pay for her security needs while she lived in the United States.

Hirsi Ali’s return raises the question of how the Netherlands or any country can protect its citizens from extremists while securing the rights of free speech and critical debate. Some politicians have called for an urgent session of Parliament. Many in the United States want to know why our government hasn’t stepped in to guarantee her protection in some way.

Dutch novelist Leon de Winter, a supporter of Hirsi Ali, offered the following commentary, reprinted in the New York Times and Courrier International:

Dutch society has no choice in this case. Canceling Ayaan’s protection would be the equivalent of a death sentence. Because she is so well known in the Netherlands and practically lives the life of a prisoner, not even able to go out on the street, the most humane solution is to continue to provide her with protection in America.

Society should cover the cost of this protection, for freedom of expression, one of the pillars of our culture, is being questioned. … The cost of this protection is nothing compared to its goal, which is to guarantee the continuity of our values.

So how do we as citizens of free countries reach out to protect those who have the courage to speak out? Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports that, according to her lawyer, Britta Böhler, Hirsi Alli is willing to pay for her own protection but that it will take some time to find the necessary resources. What is the cost of courage for the individual and for the nations? Both in monetary and in less substantial but still important terms. Can we let someone who is brave enough to speak out stand by themselves or shouldn’t we stand with them?

In an attempt to put the American people at ease with the concept of remaining in Iraq, the president gave a bumbling, historically inaccurate speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City yesterday. In his attempt to draw parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, Bush said:

One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people’, ‘re-education camps’, and ‘killing fields’.

What about the 4 million Vietnamese civilians indiscriminately killed in a conflict perpetuated by US involvement? South Vietnam was a dictatorship supported in the vain fight against Communism, and more blood was shed during our long involvement in Vietnam than in the years after the war. That’s the real legacy.

Bush also believes that Iraq is currently a democracy. Ok, yes, they have elections, but there are multiple car bombs a day and hundreds of civilians die a week. I would personally rather lived repressed than in constant fear of dying at the market. And you?

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) sums it up nicely in saying, “instead of providing the country with a history lesson…[Bush] should be reevaluating his flawed strategies.”

On a final note, the Los Angeles Times provides a thoughtful take on yesterday’s speech, saying it contained

rhetoric that would stir any patriot but logic that should persuade few. . . . The real lesson of Vietnam is that its civil war was a nationalist struggle that toppled no communist “dominoes” across Asia. Bush’s rhetoric implying an Al Qaeda “domino effect” in the Middle East has the same false ring.

Sorry Georgie, but maybe you should consult a college student who has taken a modern history class, as I think they may be more help than your current aides.

Car bombers linked to al-Qaeda (almost…) detonated three separate car bombs this weekend in the U.K., two in London and one at the Glasgow Airport. This led me to question our own level of safety from terror attacks, especially pertinent to us living in the nation’s capital, a seemingly prime target for such activities.

Why have there been no attacks in America since 9/11? I am of course thankful that nothing has happened domestically, but why has nothing happened? Are federal government anti-terror practices working, averting bombings of the likes the U.K. has seen in the past two years? Or, as The Onion satirized, are terrorists becoming complacent with/in America? Is there another answer?

Given the lack of trust I have in the current administration, and given their failed policies all across the board, including toward anti-terrorism efforts, a few examples on proven anti-terror failures come to mind. First, there is the largely unguarded East Coast port system. Second, don’t forget about the constant ability for TSA undercover agents to sneak weapons and bomb material past airport security. And finally, the weigh station/security system on our nations highways is rarely even in working order (I drove from GA to DC and not a SINGLE weigh station was open. Could I not have had a dirty bomb in my U-Haul??)

So, again, I’ll pose the question that has been nagging me…What has prevented more 9/11s??

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