Torture, Boyd, and Strategy

John Robb strikes exactly in the right note in a post on the strategic recklessness of torture:

"In short, a primary objective of US grand strategy should be to increase its connectivity within the moral sphere. The embrace of torture does exactly the opposite. It self-inflicts moral isolation on the US by violating codes of conduct we profess to uphold.

This moral isolation creates an internal dialogue plagued by mistrust, menace, and uncertainty. As a result, non-cooperative centers of gravity organically develop (internal opposition movements) and every decision becomes more difficult to accomplish. Over a long conflict, like the one we are engaged in, anything that leads to slower and less effective decision making this early in the process is nothing short of a disaster."

We hear all the time about the need to win the "information war," but the battle of perception cannot be separated from the normative battle to define the structures, beliefs, and codes of conduct that guide theory and practice in the international arena. To pretend that we can engage in public diplomacy or information operations while straying from norms that we helped create is the height of folly.

The issue goes beyond the canard that Obama supposedly favors "civil rights for terrorists." Whether or not to torture is ultimately a choice about what America is and the role we want to play in the world. Some will undoubtedly counter that norms aren't important and produce some Machiavelli's famous saying that it is better to be "feared than loved"--ignoring, of course, Machiavelli's qualification that a prince should avoid being "hated and despised."

Comments

[Eddie]

Of course, it wasn't just Obama that favored "civil rights for terrorists", it was legions of good men and women in the military and government, often holding expertise and experience in war and interrogation (in a manner Cheney and his lawyers could never appreciate), who most vigorously opposed such nonsense in the first place and often paid a steep professional and personal price for it.

I have tried to keep an open mind on this in spite of my overriding moral opposition to it, but the stupidity with which it was utilized and the reasons it was employed in the first place just overwhelm any potential rationale for its use at this point. The anger of professionals who interrogated terrorists with the methods that have worked for decades as they realize from these memos and other recent revelations about the cynical and pathological dishonesty involved in its deployment just clinches the deal.

[A.E.]

Eddie,

Fully agree. The Army, Marines, Air Force, and CIA were all united in their opposition. I think Nance puts it best in his posts on the subject at SWJ.