Stuck on Torture and Terrorism

Impassioned by latest Daily Phlog posting - I am postponing my "Nature versus Nurture" postings to reflect my concerns created by current events.

I am troubled by more than a few aspects reported in Scott Shane’s November 1, 2007, New York Times article “Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases”

1. Who are the “legal experts” explaining the Central Intelligence Agency officers’ use of the waterboarding torture practice as “harsh interrogation practice?”

2. Since it is accepted and declared by government officials, that in 2002 and 2003, C.I.A. officers used waterboarding in “questioning” “at least three” high-level terrorism suspects:

a.) Why is it that in 2007, the torture victims are still referred to as “suspects?”

If torture in general, and waterboarding specifically, are effective intelligence gathering tools, why aren’t these torture victims currently acknowledged as “terrorists?” Or al-Queda? Or bombers? Or murderers?

How can they possibly still be described as “suspects?” Should not the waterboard torture of “at least three” human beings have yielded the C.I.A. officers with a less, nonspecific category, in which to place them, than “suspects?”

Even should you choose to set aside morality - innate or socially driven, ethics, and humanity - how could such an inefficacious technique become socially and nationally acceptable?

3. How do we quantify “at least three” human beings? Thirty? Three hundred? Three thousand? Thirty thousand? Three hundred thousand? Logically, don’t all these quantitative values qualify as possible equivalents of “at least three?”

4. Is there a global or national definition of “high-level” terrorism? What is it? What is the standard by which we measure low-level, mid-level, and high-level terrorism?

I surfed the web looking for a lucid definition of this term. I could not find one. I did find that Norm Chomsky used a definition of terrorism from a U.S. Army manual describing it as, "the calculated use of violence, or the threat of violence, to inculcate fear; intended to coerce, or to intimidate governments, or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological." Chomsky used this definition to support his argument that the major sources of inter-national terrorism are the world's major powers – championed and led by the United States.

If we apply the U.S. Army manual definition of terrorism to life today in the United States, couldn't what the Bush-led government has done, and is still doing, qualify as terrorizing American society?

In his book "Inside Terrorism" Bruce Hoffman wrote in Chapter One: Defining Terrorism, that, “On one point, at least, everyone agrees: terrorism is a pejorative term. A word with intrinsically negative connotations it is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. 'What is called terrorism,' quoting Brian Jenkins, "thus seems to depend on one's point of view. Use of the term implies a moral judgment; ...if one party can successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its moral viewpoint.’ ...the decision to call someone or label some organization `terrorist' becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned.”

How can this country contemplate the nomination of any Attorney General prospect, who refuses to declare waterboarding illegal or prosecute any and all involved in these illegal actions, regardless of their rank, title, office or wealth?

How can the citizenry of this society express anything but outrage and revulsion at the perpetration of torture by government decree; compounded by the sanctioning and championing of these crimes by those sworn to represent us, and our constitution – Presidents, Attorney Generals, Senators, and Representatives all?

What I find most disturbing about the current debate concerning the issues of defining, legitimizing, criminalizing, sanctioning, or prosecuting acts of torture, is how can we, the society of citizens opposed to torture, affect change within our government, so that it reflects the true moral conscience of humanity.