On of the most distinct differences between the policy of the Obama administration and that of the Bush administration is the policy on torture. President Obama has made it clear that the US government will not conduct torture under any circumstance. This is an issue I've struggled with for some time; there are compelling arguments on both sides of the debate and I'd like to take a brief look at them.
There have been many questions asked of the Bush Administration's torture and rendition policies. The CIA was given authority to abduct people considered threats to national security, transport them to secret facility, and torture them in order to extract information. Consequently, there are numerous legal issues which have arisen due to these practices:
1) It is a violation of US law to transport any person to any location for the purpose of torture;
2) It is a violation of the UN Convention against Torture, which began in June 1987;
3) A vast expanse of "gray area" with respect to US and international law.
The reality is that the "War on Terror" is a conflict between various states (US, UK, etc.) and a transnational network of individuals who have designs to inflict harm upon civilians. Essentially, Al Qaeda and related networks are not subject to any kind of constitution, domestic law, or even international law. This means that they do not have to play by any certain set of rules, whereas we do.
This is where you saw the emergence of vague legal terms like "illegal combatant" emerge from the Bush administration, as it tried to establish some semblance of legal framework to deal with members of various terror networks. This is also part of the challenge of closing Guantanamo Bay: the creation of a legal framework to deal with an unprecedented scenario.
Anyhow, back to the question at hand. Let us suppose that you're the President of the United States and one of your advisors comes to you and says "we have detained someone whom we strongly believe to be involved in the successful transport of a nuclear device to the United States and we believe he knows where this device is." Your job as President is to protect the people of the United States, but it is also to uphold the law of the land. WHAT DO YOU DO!?
Do you violate US law and torture the guy? You're not certain he knows what you want to know and you're also not certain that anything he tells you is going to be factually correct. Torture is supposedly quite unreliable, although I am no expert.
You could try cutting a deal with the guy, offering him a pardon and extradition to another country if the information he gives you leads to the capture of the nuclear device. This doesn't seem likely because odds are that the dude is willing to die for his cause.
Finally, you could choose not to torture the guy and hope that your intelligence agencies will be able to locate and prevent the detonation of the nuclear device.
This is perhaps a more extreme scenario, since tens of thousands of American lives are at stake in the immediate future. But what about less-pressing cases? What if you're torturing a guy because you think he knows something that might be useful in the future?
There was a time, not long ago, when I believed that torture was a necessary evil when fighting an enemy such as Al Qaeda. How can you justify placing American lives in danger in order to protect one guy whom is your enemy? Ultimately I came to the same conclusion that President Obama has: our moral high ground is more important in the long run. What it all comes down to is whether or not we will lower ourselves to the level of the enemy. The true test of moral standing comes when you adhere to your principles, even in the difficult times.
Personally, I would like to see the international community establish a legal framework for dealing with the combatants of non-state actors like Al Qaeda. The globalized world has brought with it new challenges and global terror networks are one of them. My hope for the Obama administration is that it leads the charge in coming up with an acceptable, just, and effective means of dealing with issues in this vast expanse of legal and moral gray area.
Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts
2.10.2009
2.06.2009
Information: Part One
This is the first part in a series (of unknown length) on the role of information in the 21st century. Obviously this is a very broad topic, and it is likely that I will go off on tangents from time to time, but it is one that I've been giving some thought to of late. So please bear with me and forgive the loosely-structured nature of this discussion.
Many members of Western societies take the flow of information for granted. We have unfettered access to the internet, 24-hour news networks, and YouTube. In the US, we have the freedom of speech guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment. However, a huge portion of the world lives without the flow of information we enjoy. I would like to spend some time on how a state which constricts its citizens' access to information can alter the future of a society, and indeed the world.
Imagine living in a society where you have NO access to the internet, NO news channels, and NO phone lines. Further, imagine living under the rule of a government which actively seeks to cut of all ties to the outside world. There is no rule of law, no access to education, and pervasive fear that expressing one's opinion could result in execution. This was life for the Afghan people for generations, living under one repressive regime after another, largely the result of the Russian and British Empires battling for control over Central Asia in what is known as The Great Game. In fact, the state of Afghanistan was CREATED by the British and ruled through puppet governments for quite some time.
The result of this history is a population who have had little to no exposure to the outside world and whom have been victim of one repressive regime after another. When the Taliban emerged with control of the country following the Soviet withdrawal, it used Islam as a means to control the Afghan people. Of course, this version of Islam was so extreme and so far from the mainstream that it could barely be identified as the same religion practiced by over a billion people in the world. In some capacity or another, Islam was used as a political tool to gain power and create a population of people who were utterly resistant to outside influence.
Now, you might be thinking that it is impossible for the restriction of information and the teaching of extremist ideology by a government to have that much of an influence on a population. A good example is in some former Soviet states in the region - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan - the Soviet union was so successful at erasing the history of these societies, that people living today cannot tell you an accurate history of their past because all recorded knowledge has been purged, and all first-hand information went away as previous generations passed on. This was all part of the USSR's plans to "Sovietize" the Central Asia region.
When the movie Titanic illegally made its way into Afghanistan (3-4 years after it came out), many Afghan men began styling a haircut they referred to as "The Leo," obviously after Leonardo DiCaprio's haircut from the movie. The Taliban immediately BANNED this haircut because it represented an outside influence to Afghan society. The Taliban was so repressive that people were actually put in jail if they were seen sporting this haircut!
So, why should we care about all of this? The short answer is what happened on September 11th. It is no secret that the biggest cause of terrorism is NOT a hatred for the West or free societies. Rather, it is the product of extremely repressed, extremely poor people who have in essence been brainwashed as a result of their living conditions. It is easy to generate hatred for America when the people who supposedly hate us hear only the information their government wants them to hear.
Al Qaeda will not succeed in their goal simply because more and more people are gaining access to information about the outside world and are being exposed to the real America. We did not win the Cold War because of tanks, machine guns, or the existence of a nuclear arsenal capable of cracking our planet in half. Rather, we won because our country won the ideological battle in the eyes of the world. Communism failed as an ideology because the people living under the Soviet regime saw the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by the average American.
I have always been a proponent of the "lead by example" approach; it is what ultimately won the Cold War and it is why we will ultimately win the ideological battle with extreme Islam. Indeed, the strongest asset we have as a nation is our ability to set an example and generate respect among people of the world. It is therefore absolutely CRUCIAL that we maintain this asset as we move into the future. We must ensure that the "American dream" is alive and well; that EVERY person in this country has the opportunity to make a better life for themselves.
Many members of Western societies take the flow of information for granted. We have unfettered access to the internet, 24-hour news networks, and YouTube. In the US, we have the freedom of speech guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment. However, a huge portion of the world lives without the flow of information we enjoy. I would like to spend some time on how a state which constricts its citizens' access to information can alter the future of a society, and indeed the world.
Imagine living in a society where you have NO access to the internet, NO news channels, and NO phone lines. Further, imagine living under the rule of a government which actively seeks to cut of all ties to the outside world. There is no rule of law, no access to education, and pervasive fear that expressing one's opinion could result in execution. This was life for the Afghan people for generations, living under one repressive regime after another, largely the result of the Russian and British Empires battling for control over Central Asia in what is known as The Great Game. In fact, the state of Afghanistan was CREATED by the British and ruled through puppet governments for quite some time.
The result of this history is a population who have had little to no exposure to the outside world and whom have been victim of one repressive regime after another. When the Taliban emerged with control of the country following the Soviet withdrawal, it used Islam as a means to control the Afghan people. Of course, this version of Islam was so extreme and so far from the mainstream that it could barely be identified as the same religion practiced by over a billion people in the world. In some capacity or another, Islam was used as a political tool to gain power and create a population of people who were utterly resistant to outside influence.
Now, you might be thinking that it is impossible for the restriction of information and the teaching of extremist ideology by a government to have that much of an influence on a population. A good example is in some former Soviet states in the region - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan - the Soviet union was so successful at erasing the history of these societies, that people living today cannot tell you an accurate history of their past because all recorded knowledge has been purged, and all first-hand information went away as previous generations passed on. This was all part of the USSR's plans to "Sovietize" the Central Asia region.
When the movie Titanic illegally made its way into Afghanistan (3-4 years after it came out), many Afghan men began styling a haircut they referred to as "The Leo," obviously after Leonardo DiCaprio's haircut from the movie. The Taliban immediately BANNED this haircut because it represented an outside influence to Afghan society. The Taliban was so repressive that people were actually put in jail if they were seen sporting this haircut!
So, why should we care about all of this? The short answer is what happened on September 11th. It is no secret that the biggest cause of terrorism is NOT a hatred for the West or free societies. Rather, it is the product of extremely repressed, extremely poor people who have in essence been brainwashed as a result of their living conditions. It is easy to generate hatred for America when the people who supposedly hate us hear only the information their government wants them to hear.
Al Qaeda will not succeed in their goal simply because more and more people are gaining access to information about the outside world and are being exposed to the real America. We did not win the Cold War because of tanks, machine guns, or the existence of a nuclear arsenal capable of cracking our planet in half. Rather, we won because our country won the ideological battle in the eyes of the world. Communism failed as an ideology because the people living under the Soviet regime saw the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by the average American.
I have always been a proponent of the "lead by example" approach; it is what ultimately won the Cold War and it is why we will ultimately win the ideological battle with extreme Islam. Indeed, the strongest asset we have as a nation is our ability to set an example and generate respect among people of the world. It is therefore absolutely CRUCIAL that we maintain this asset as we move into the future. We must ensure that the "American dream" is alive and well; that EVERY person in this country has the opportunity to make a better life for themselves.
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