Collin Levey notes in the Christian Science Monitor how talk of using torture on terrorism suspects has “in dizzying speed … gone from the province of the deranged and authoritarian to normal talk-show fodder in the land of the free.”
What’s interesting is that, while Levey shrinks back from physical torture, for both ethical and pragmatic reasons, she has no compunction about psychological torture — as if lack of bruise, blood, or broken bones makes the results acceptible.
Crude torture is both inefficient and degrading to both parties. Yet there are ways of getting to the truth. Americans, with all their ingenuity and a disproportionate share of the world’s clinical psychologists, ought to be able to crack this nut without lowering ourselves to bin Laden’s level.
It may be more effective, but is psychological or emotional assault/attack/abuse/torment/torture really that much more defensible, morally, than physical assault/attack/abuse/torment/torture? Is it less “degrading to both parties”? I think not. After all, hasn’t that equivalence been the basis for hate crimes, harrassment laws, and various child abuse statutes?
Aren’t we beginning to realize, as a society, that mental illness deserves the same respect and level of treatment as physical illness? Doesn’t that mean that, in turn, inflicting mental wounds is somehow the same as inflicting physical wounds?
Taking this approach doesn’t clear up the issue of whether such pressure tactics are, in fact, justified in certain cases. I wish it did. All it does is muddy the waters by giving us the illusion that, because the injuries don’t show up on an X-ray, they don’t really count against us for causing them.