Extreme interrogation

I wandered in front of the TV this morning, and heard a former mayor of New York expostulate on the techniques of torture (I mean, sorry, "extreme interrogation" – I forgot my "Peacemaker Missile Engloid Handbook"). He reminded us all, with that acidic charm that comes from possessing secret knowledge and twiddling with a piece of it to the Hamlinite entertainment of couch potatoes hypnotized by the Pied Piper, that "waterboarding is more effective for future events than for the past."

The rationale was positively exciting. I'll have to keep in mind, for some future need, the fact that an "interrogatee" (is this a word? … wait, let me check … oh, sorry, it's right there in Engloid) will tell me what I want to know about the past. But about future events, he can't tell me what I want to know because … wait, let me think … oh, yes, I've got it … because it hasn't happened yet.

And what's better, the ex-mayor (and ex-candidate) gushed in his inimitable manner, the interrogator can check the evening news that evening and see of the interrogatee was right, and if he wasn't, then "he can go right back at him."

I guess that's like verification and feedback, like companies getting focus group evaluations on their product and going back to the factory for redesign until the brass gets what it wants.

I'd like to know how an ex-mayor knows this much about torture, especially about the subtle distinction between tenses, and the quite philosophical meditation on reliability.

I'd also like to know how and why the hell we are allowing this R-rated discussion of American torture technique and justification on TV, during Sesame Street hours.

The answer is embedded in the question.

I am not a pacifist, mainly because several Christian soldiers (like St. George) were rather good at what they did. The Forerunner did not tell his inquirers to go AWOL.

But there is no place in the Faith for the production of war. There is and can be no "just war theory" in apostolicity, in the theoria that is the content of true theology, and that is the inspiration of true practice. There was and are Christian soldiers who serve bravely and nobly, but who suffer even when they kill "bad guys." They know, and are generally relieved to find out, that such killing and unleashing of mayhem is reckoned as "involuntary sin."

"Just war" theorists work long and hard at justification (pun intended), and some of their dialectic is breathtaking in scope. I, for one, am happy about the outcome at Nafpakthos (GK poetizes about it under a different name). But that was when, theoretically at least, wars were fought between armies. That was then, this is now, as the rummy saying goes (like the engagingly metaphysical, nay ontological, existential shrug "It is what it is"). It took the secular age to invent all out, comprehensive war where the casualties are counted in the millions – so great a number that the shovel of its force no longer hits the face: the pain has been conveniently sublimated into statistical knowledge – which is no knowledge of all.

That said, I don't think that in a secular world it is possible – even with the helpful stipulations of the just war dialectic – to wage a just war. For there is no justice in war possible anymore. For there is no "just" anymore to war, not with obliteration a possibility at any moment, anywhere.

Even in this "therapeutic" Orthodox accounting for war – in this worldly vale of sorrows before the Parousia, when there will be always wars and rumors of war – where we pray for our soldiers and heal them … still, even in this accounting, there is no rationale for torture. I will state it baldly: torture is sin. It is voluntary sin for the peon who has to deal it out, even if he or she has the psychic defense mechanism that repeats, like a mantra, "these are my orders." Torture is even more damning for those who design it, perfect it, and enshrine it in policy.

I really don't care whether torture works or not (I rather think that it does, as so many demonic works do). Torture is profoundly transgressive and unleashes a pathogen in society through a putrid cynicism that infects the administration, and a horrific perdition that seeps into the consciousness of the poor soldiers who were commanded to engage in its operation. The ludicrous VA calls this condition PTSD. They have no idea.

The Romans complain about capital punishment (although, oddly, many of them use "just war" language), and I find some of their arguments engaging. Still, one cannot deny that the authority of worldly government clearly involves death. That is the simple reason why St. Paul uses rather negative terms like "judgment," "terror to evil works," "sword-bearer" and "avenger to execute wrath" in Romans xiii to describe "governing authorities." You may disagree, but I think that it is rather Romper Roomish to think that the state will get along in this world without such a sword.

I will never deal out capital punishment, God willing, and for that I thank the providence of the state. For heaven's sake, I may not even own a gun. But what I do expect of the state is a denunciation of torture. If I want the state to impose the higher ethic of humane law, which demands protection for the unborn, the unwanted and the poor, then I must also demand humane protection for the enemy.

In other words, I can understand the state killing the enemy in the prosecution of war, and the homicidal criminal in the prosecution of law: but I will not tolerate abortion or torture.

And certainly not on TV, whose violence I thought was fictional. Now it is the realm of plain fact and the news.

Comments

[Dianne]

Preach it, Father.
Amen.

[robert]

Amen. And thank you God that said ex-Mayor is not our President.

[ochlophobist]

Spot on.

I struggle to come to terms with the mystery of it - but it seems to me that there is a quality of the dignity of the human image that demands what can only be considered a certain incoherence - that it is an affront to the dignity of the human person to torture one in order to save many (this assumes that the torture actually results in the material salvation of the many). There comes a point where the Christian must say that it is better for me, and my family, and my friends to die, than for that man, whatever sort of man he may be, to be tortured. The dignity of the human image is distorted in me when its security is found in the disfiguring of another.

[Fr. Jonathan]

I am troubled by the ease of many self-identified Christians, in accepting the rubric "in order to save many." It sounds suspiciously like Caiaphus' "it is expedient" slogan for Good Friday (i.e., "good" for him and status quo).

I think that this torture controversy spells out some of the extent of the moral decrepitude of the neo-cons, who tricked callow evangelicals and ex-prot-Romans (you know who) -- and even Christopher Hitchens with them -- into a globe-trotting rambunctious immorality.

Despite their teetotaling, evangelicals before the IQ drain of the 1950's were more ethically astute.

Your point about the affront to human dignity puts me in mind of the shock that we would suffer at the defacement of an icon of Christ. This shock is only a representation of the outrage that should obtain whenever a man is butchered before death.

I don't think it matters, ever, what intention determines the torture of a man -- even a ticking time bomb. Human dignity is such that it cannot be calculated in individuals or populations.

"The dignity of the human image is distorted in me when its security is found in the disfiguring of another."

Rem acu tetegisti.

[Visibilium]

Fugitive Manuel Noriega holed up in the Vatican Embassy in Panama until the Embassy got tired of listening to loud music.

Torture?

[Fr. Jonathan]

And there are other questions that this episode raises. Who was afflicted? Noriega, or the Embassy of the Nuncio?

What was the instrument of affliction? The loud music, or Noriega himself?

What was the nature of the affliction? Torture? No, because the Nuncio and his staff did not think they were going to die, or wish for death as a relief.

Now if you asked if waterboarding were torture, where both of these thoughts are common, then yes, I'd say it's torture.

[Visibilium]

Would you say that your two-thought criteria are rather soft within the context of the historical use of torture?

It seems that your two-thought criteria lack an objective element and are purely introspective. Does the lack of an objective element bother you?

I rather liked your post. Even though we disagree on issues, your presentation is fair and balanced.

[Mark Basil]

Christ is in our midst!

Dear Fr Jonathan;
I really appreciated this post. However I think it is a strange thing to object to torture while still condoning killing.
Of course war is inevitable, and of course governments must do what the world asks them to do. However, against the grain of mainstream interpretation of Rom. 13 to condone the use of the sword I think it does not at all suggest this. (have you encountered this interpretation in the Orthodox Fathers? I am genuinely curious as I know it is ubiquitous in the 'West', where great effort has been made to support a punitive justice system and the making of war in defense of the material life of those people we identify as closer to us than others).
St Paul states matter of fact what the governing powers can and will do-- use lethal force to enforce the law. And this authority is God's servant; what else could it be? For God is sovereign and all things are according to His providence. He will likewise use natural disaster and any calamity as an agent of His wrath, and work all thing for the good of those who believe.
And we see how Christ Himself did submit to this authority, in the silence leading up to His passion.
A christian submits to all who would seek to oppress us, going the extra mile and giving more than is asked of us.
But if the worldly authority St Paul tells us to submit to is a more or less evil Roman empire, responsible for the oppression of himself and the dealer of death to our Lord, then it seems to me our submission is not based on the 'ostensive justice' of the authority. It seems more plausible to me that it is simply part of the Christian way of loving one's enemy; the Roman authority was a brutal enemy of the Way, yet even it is within God's providential right hand, and the persons who are within it may be wone over by our witness and our love (though this isn't the point; the point is that we willingly participate in Christ's passion as co-conquerors of death by death).

I do not see why we must take Rom 13 as anyway condoning the violence of government. This worldly authority is utilized by God but we as Christians abhor the shedding of blood. How can we be iconoclasts with respect to human persons?
If killing is *always* a sin (as I have been catechized by my patron saint), how can it ever be right for a Christian to condone or participate in it? Yes, many of us still will as a fallen matter of fact. We who do have not achieved theosis. There may be divorce and remarriage too but this is because our hearts are hard. We do not 'support' it, we allow it. Why do we not teach the same thing about state violence?
How can we who serve the resurrected King, ever support the dealing of death? Every Christian will do as his heart dictates; if we are not ready to love our enemies we will kill them, and we must repent and receive God's forgiveness. But this is a failure, is it not? Never advocated, only recognized as inevitable and dealt with pastoraly and with God's economia.
If priest cannot shed blood ever, does this not set the bar for all the faithful if we would be perfect? Or is theosis only for the clergy and not the faithful? It really makes no sense if it is not suppose to be normative (for the ideal is normative; perfection is normative)

As for St John the Forerunner's response to the soldiers; is he not the greatest of men but still least in the kingdom, being last of the OT prophets? He had "heard that it was said..." but did not know that Christ "says unto you" love of enemy is the condition for Sonship. He did not know that our warfare is *not* carnal, but with principalities and powers.
And of course a Christian can be a soldier and progress along a path of salvation, but ultimately he must leave this 'vocation' that requires the dealing of death if he would be perfect. Is this not clear from the ladder of the beatitudes? "Be pefect..." Is this not the case with St George and all of our 'warrior saints'? None of them are glorified by God because they efficiently shed the blood of others, but only because of their subsequent witness through the shedding of their own blood.
What would we make of St Martin of Tours, who renounced the violence of his worldly vocation?

It seems to me undeniable that we cannot love our enemies with Christian love, with the love Christ shows his enemies, while killing them. Shouldn't this be the end of the debate about christian participation in violence? This is always sin; how can it be right-- i.e. an act of godly perfection-- to sin under any circumstance?
If we would obey Christ's command to love our enemies, then we must not kill or condone killing. The governments of the world will carry on, war will carry on. Sin is inevitable. But we cannot condone it in any way.

Please forgive me for my boldness.
-Mark Basil

[Fr. Jonathan]

Dear Mark,
He is and always shall be!
Your pardon would be appreciated for the delay in response. I've been out and about.
I do not support a punitive justice system and the making of war at all. But I also think that these activities are going to be inevitable in the course of civic power and government: "there will be wars and rumors of wars" is a sad description of the world before the Parousia.
Of course, you stipulate this.
I am not sure where, in my essay, I suggested any condoning of state killing or warmaking. I think I said quite clearly that there is no possibility for a "just war" theory that could be extrapolated from Holy Tradition.
I will quibble with you on what the Forerunner knew and did not know. Do you suggest that had the Forerunner known the Gospel, that he would have told the soldiers to quit their post? I don't think so.
I have gone on record, on this site, as being quite opposed to modern warmaking, especially in the neocon idiom. I am against capital punishment, but a draw a sharp line between it and the subject of abortion -- my opposition to abortion is of a completely different line.
I can preach this to the faithful. But I cannot demand that the state swear off the sword.
I already agreed with you that the commission of violence is at least at the level of "involuntary sin" -- i.e., the participation in the deathwork of the world.
I think we agree with each other more than what you think.
Blessings,
Fr. Jonathan

[Mark Basil]

Blessed Feast Day of the Forerunner's Nativity!

Thank you for your response Fr Jonathan.
It appears you are correct, we agree more than I realized. I'm sorry to have overstated the case, and am grateful for your clarification.

Still I wonder if we do yet disagree substantially? (I am very young and genuinely desire to acquire the mind of the Church on this, and believe I have not yet certainly on the topic of violence I am still confused. I pray daily that "this mind be in me which is in Christ Jesus...").

I think the disagreement is in emphasis. You chose to state, "I am not a pacifist, but...", while I feel the corrective needed is in the opposite direction. "I am a pacifist, however..."
This is because in my experience, few Orthodox realize how contrary the gospel is to the use of violence. Governments are extremely powerful 'alternative (to the gospel) influences' and the interests of Empire-- the powers that be-- will always need to persuade the masses that 'violence in defense of justice' is a noble cause. The interests of governing powers are always threatened by nonviolence, and so the overwhelming influence of national socialization will be overwhelmingly in the direction of legitimizing violence.
This seems reason enough to push in the other direction, "I am a Christian and so a pacifist," and let our distinctive nuance follow, "but...".
If killing is always a sin, why are we not pacifists?

This is similar to my feelings about divorce and remarriage (the latter absolutely prohibited by our Lord in the scriptures), which is to say that we teach divorce and especially remarriage is always a sin, yet realizing the hardness of our hearts when it happens we find the best way to deal with it in the hopes that through repentance grace may abound still.
As with divorce and remarriage, I feel our current culture is extremely inclined and socialized to normalize the sin, and as a corrective more emphasis should be placed on the absolute prohibition, letting economia (and mercy) follow when human weakness triumphs.

"The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined [at $651.2 billion for 2009]"
(from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States)
Again it seems clear that there is an overwhelming bias in one direction, and in this light the prophetic emphasis of the gospel needs to be stated sharply in the opposite direction; "we are Apostolic Christians, we are pacifists." Again it seems to me that the absolute prohibition of the shedding of blood placed on the liturgical preisthood (under any circumstances-- including self-defense, defense of one's family, defense of one's nation), can only be understood as the Christian ideal-- a pacifist ideal.

The nuance should be, I think, in clarifying the height of this calling, and never becoming ideological or moralistic about it. Christ directly identifies both "peacemaking" and "love of enemies" with Sonship, and the perfection of our Father in heaven. It seems clear to me in this light that love of enemies is directly tied to nonviolence (we cannot make peace with violence, contrary popular propaganda). And yet equally clear that this is one of the hardest commandments-- one of the highest indications of theosis is to love our (national, not just personal) enemies as dearly as we love our friends and family. So few will have the strength to show forth this nonviolent love. (I know without question that I kill my enemies daily in my own heart).
But if the Cross is intrinsically nonviolent, then the gospel is necessarily nonviolent, and we , with nuance, economia, and mercy for the weakness of immature hearts such as my own.

I am also puzzled by your reference to state violence as "involuntary sin." I guess it just seems strange to consider intentionally killing someone, as involuntary?
Involuntary because of a 'role' one must play? But then I ask, why *must* a Christan play this role? Why *must* a Christian be a soldier? Why would we not clearly dissuade the faithful from a vocation that may require sin? If a person persists, then of course he may be a soldier and like many others advance along a path of salvation far beyond the likes of me. But this is only ever *inspite* of his vocation, isn't it? Being a soldier is only ever a hindrance to perfection, love of enemies, if killing is always sin.

You asked if I think St John the Forerunner would have told the soldiers to cease being soldiers, if he "knew the gospel."
I dont know, but I'm inclined to say No, I dont.
Yet I would hesitate to make very much of this. A few verses before he only told tax collectors (real crooks of that day) to not overcollect. This seems a very meager corrective to their profession (what about repaying the countless victims of their past extortion, as the tax collector who encountered Christ the Way was inspired to do?). But change is slow, and a small step can set a heart on the right path, to prepare the way. I would not tell every soldier that he must quit his job, either.
I would say that it seems risky to extrapolate too much from the Forerunner's silence.

I am especially interested in the witness of the Church before the conversion of St Constantine. Not surprisingly. :)
For example I have read hear (and seen in before):

Killing in war had been forbidden completely in earlier canons, such as Canon 14 of Hippolytus in the fourth century, which states:

A Christian is not to become a soldier. A Christian must not become a soldier, unless he is compelled by a chief bearing the sword. He is not to burden himself with the sin of blood. But if he has shed blood, he is not to partake of the mysteries, unless he is purified by a punishment, tears, and wailing. He is not to come forward deceitfully but in the fear of God.

Here, in the early church, it is very clear that there is incompatibility with soldiering and the gospel (I feel this is already clear in St Paul's exposition that we do not make war according to the flesh, and St James' comments that war are only ever a result of our passions). I wish this were preached and taught more clearly in the Orthodox Church today.
It does not seem unreasonable to me that the gospel has been very much marginalized on this point, since Empire (through the centuries) has had its powerful influence on members of the church.

I will end where I began, that we doubtless agree more than I realize. Yet does it seem to you that my position is still significantly different than yours? Why should we not state outright that we are pacifists?
Perhaps I have an axe to grind; if so may God forgive me and you too! I do seek the truth only and want to listen, though I sound like a loud noise. And I am trying to "let this mind be in me which was in Christ Jesus."
Please pray for me and I will appreciate very much your response.

The sinner;
-Mark Northey