Wed, September 27, 2006
Torture by Numbers
Last night's Daily Show Moment of Zen included a clip of right-wing radio's Laura Ingraham telling Fox News viewers that because the average American loves 24 and 24 has interrogation scenes with torture, that's "as close to a referendum on whether it's okay to use torture methods in interrogation as we're going to get."
I decided to look at the numbers. According to the best estimates I could find, 24 topped out at around 13.78 million viewers during its most recent and highest rated non-stop season. That's great for Kiefer, but it's not a lot of torture supporters. That's not even enough to get elected governor of California.
The same Nielsen information indicates 24 gets a 13 share in "the demo," but fails to give an overall percentage. Nobody under 18 can vote, but plenty of people over 49 can vote, and we know they love to torture people (have you heard them droning on at the Thanksgiving table?) so let's double that number just to be on the safe side. 26% approval is well below Bush's latest approval rating – more people support the torturer than the torture itself. This referendum is not going so well.
But none of this matters, anyway, because watching a show is by no means an endorsement of everything that happens on that show, right? If it is, that means the same 26% approve of people taking shots at the president – should we give that a try while we're following their command and waterboarding anyone who looks at us funny? Grey's Anatomy is tops on TV right now – does that mean Americans support adultery, malpractice, and obnoxiously bitchy, self-centered monologues?
Regardless, is this really the way we should be making our torture decisions – a popular vote? Shouldn't the judicial branch (such as it is) be in charge of this? Given the charged atmosphere of fear and xenophobia, it might be a good idea to defer these choices of global and historic consequence to someone with a level head and an eye to the future.
I haven't really had much to say about this issue, because I've been enjoying (and participating in) Holly's excellent review of the situation, over at Words Are Fun; you should catch up if you're interested, she's done a great job.
Cheery Lightheartedness, Part 1
Cheery Lightheartedness, Part 2
Cheery Lightheartedness, Part 3
Cheery Lightheartedness, Part 4
Obviously, nobody in his right mind would take Ingraham's message seriously. But of course these days a right mind is no qualification for a prominent position in the national debate. If it were, this discussion over the clarification of torture never would have started in the first place.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Joe Mulder — Wed, 9/27/06 5:53pm
Shows you how much "Daily Show" I've been missing. I didn't even know torture was a hot topic anymore. I just remembered that Darling Ben and I agreed fully on this issue a while back (I know!); that torture should be banned and illegal and all that, all the while understanding that in a "ticking-clock" type of situation (i.e., a suitcase nuke is going to explode in the middle of San Francisco in 45 minutes and we've captured a guy who knows where it is), torture would be unavoidable and would likely go unpunished.
Or course, in real life, such ticking-clock scenarios are, if not impossible, almost impossibly unlikely (think: a pitcher could technically walk 27 guys in a single game and still pitch a no-hitter. But it would never actually happen).
Which is why (if it even needs to be explained) using "24" as a benchmark for the public supporting torture is so silly; the torture on "24" (and there's a lot of it) is pretty much always done in the ticking-clock scenario, as evidenced by the ticking clock that appears onscreen about five or six times an episode.
I have to agree that in just about any other scenario, torture or harsh treatment of prisoners – even if it yields the odd bit of useful information – isn't worth the moral price paid.
Bee Boy — Wed, 9/27/06 8:09pm
Or the strategic or marketing prices.
And – most importantly – pretending that there are degrees of torture (acceptable degrees, and "illegal" degrees) is absurd. Either you're torturing someone, or you're treating him humanely. "Torture" is like "obscenity." You know it when you see it. Or, hopefully, you know it when you hear it described to you by the guy who's putting together the shopping list of items to attach to prisoners' genitals. Waiting until you actually see it would probably be a mistake in torture's case.
(Not that I'm drawing any other parallels between torture and obscenity. Obscenity is in most cases very, very awesome; torture almost never is. It's just the "I know it when I see it" test I'm talking about here.)
"Holly" — Wed, 9/27/06 10:20pm
Hurray for Darling Ben, Joe, and Jameson. Agreement all 'round from me. I heard an interesting commentator (totally forget where or who, so he/she gets no credit whatsoever for this analysis) who noted that just because we make torture absolutely illegal doesn't mean that a CIA guy suddenly faced with a perfect 24 ticking clock scenario will somehow be incapable of torturing the prisoner whom he absolutely knows can stop the crisis. He can go ahead and do it, and save the country. He will then be asked tough questions about it afterwards, in the media or in a courtroom, which is a good thing. He should be asked tough questions. Maybe he should still even pay a criminal price; maybe he should be let off the hook this once as a rare exception to all rules; that's what the jury will decide. Any American operative who chooses to torture a prisoner will have to decide that – like risking a gunshot wound to save a comrade on the battlefield – this act is worth risking criminal prosecution to save Americans. And, as Joe notes, true crystal-clear 24 ticking-clock moments are so rare in real life that I doubt most (if any) agents would ever face this question.
And that's not to say that 24 doesn't say disturbing things about Americans' perceptions of torture. Id est: Jack is always right and never tortures anyone who isn't both (1) profoundly and unquestionably guilty and (2) able to provide life-saving information exclusively when suffering physical pain. And every time someone objects to Jack Bauer torturing someone, the objector is exposed as a whiny coward who can't stomach what it takes to Save Americans – which makes some sense, let's be fair, in a world where torture always works and the torturer is always right.
But that's fiction, God help us! Damn Hollywood liberal hippies, tricking those unsuspecting Laura Ingraham hypothetical referendum participants into believing torture is effective and heroic.
It's also happening on the show that's apparently my current favorite punching bag (only 'cause I haven't written anything up on Jericho yet). Last season on Lost, Sayid explained that, as a torturer, he has magically acquired the empathic gift to tell when someone is innocent or guilty; therefore he isn't now at risk of torturing innocent people. And the show then cheerfully proves him right. Think about the ramifications of that; the collapse of logic it takes to reach that conclusion; the horrendously scary justification for torture that entails; the arrogance of that.
It would have been okay if the show had gone on to prove him wrong, to his dismay – it would have been a semi-interesting glimpse into how a torturer justifies his unjustifiable actions and then is slapped in the face by the truth (and by his own guilt). But no. Apparently, if Sayid is torturing you, then that in itself is automatically proof that you're guilty. Again, it's the same Bush-torture mindset cropping up again: "Thanks to our American omnipotence, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every prisoner interrogated with these methods is an Evildoer; we make no errors, which is why we can do these things and still be good people."
Creepy. First, that an interrogator could believe that s/he was omnipotent in this way. Second, that an interrogator could believe that omnipotence – or anything else – justifies torture.
Not that I feel strongly about this issue or anything.
Bee Boy — Wed, 9/27/06 11:20pm
Hee! This reminds me of a bad Simpsons episode that surrounded this otherwise stellar exchange:
[Simpson family escapes folksy Florida policeman (Diedrich Bader), jumping into their car.]
LISA: Dad! You can't drive without your license!
HOMER [keying the ignition]: I have to try... [the engine turns over] It works! Woo hoo!
On the Sayid/Bush torturer thing, I'd just like to add to your already excellent analysis: Just because we know (or Sayid knows) beyond the shadow of a doubt that someone is guilty, we don't know they still won't lie under interrogation.
Further: It's frustrating that someone could be omnipotent and yet somehow their omnipotence would fail them in the one crucial area of realizing that, if they're omnipotent in the first place, they already know everything the terrorist knows, so torturing him in hopes of getting him to reiterate known information is kind of a waste of time.
Bee Boy — Fri, 9/29/06 11:56am
Couple of nice editorials on this topic. Too late to do anything, of course. (It seems our whole generation will basically exist as a cautionary tale to our children's children, should they be lucky enough to escape random imprisonment.)
This Time, Congress Has No Excuse [WaPo]
Rushing Off a Cliff [NYT]