"Why" Doesn't Matter

Glenn Greenwald has rather outdone himself today. In a must read post, he describes the moral superiority of this nation over that of a barbaric nation such as the UAE. An excerpt, but you really must go read the whole thing,

Had Issa -- who ordered these torture sessions recorded -- only looked to the U.S. for civilized and moral leadership on such matters, he almost certainly could have avoided this trouble (...) Only monsters and barbarians fail to destroy their own torture tapes.

What strikes me, however, is how many of the comments are people justifying our use of torture based on its usefulness in "obtaining information" or "keeping us safe." Most of them decry the comparison with Sheik Issa because he was torturing someone merely for disagreeing with the regime, while we do it for noble reasons such as defending freedom.

In a recent poll, among people who attend church at least once weekly, 52% said that the use of torture was at least "sometimes justified" based on the need to defend this nation from terrorists. Yes, the word "torture" was used in the poll; they were approving the use, specifically, of torture.

This kind of moral relativism utterly baffles me. If I rob a bank, is anyone going to accept that as a moral and legal act merely because I claimed that I had no money and needed to feed my family? Of course they are not. They are going to tell me that I should have obtained money in some other manner, in a manner that was moral and legal. And indeed I should have done so. If I was unable to and resorted to bank robbery as a last and desperate resort that would still not make it legal or moral.

I might claim to myself that the act was rendered legal and moral by my need to obtain money for what I considered to be justifiable and unselfish reasons. The law would regard those arguments as empty self-justification and throw me in jail for bank robbery.

To me, that is what the people who argue in favor of torture (or who argue that "enhanced interrogation" is not torture) are engaged in; the moral cowardice of self justification. Their position is one of fearfulness, and the sense that their own safety trumps the need for moral behavior and compliance with laws.

Update: Sunday, 10:50am
With reference to more than a few comments in that same thread that the UAE torture was "worse" that what we did because we were at least doing it for better reasons. Nonsense. The crime is the act itself. The reason is relevant only to the extent that it shows intent to commit the act.