A Survey of Torture
Slate has a thorough survey of the issues, documents, and methods related to current issues with torture by US actors.
It is not true, as many in the Arab world believe, that the United States has embarked on a reckless campaign of torture and abuse of its Arab prisoners of war. But what has happened
- a slow slide from coherent, consistent standards for interrogation and treatment of prisoners to a sometimes ad-hoc, occasionally brutal search for information at all costs -should warrant public outcry. That it has not suggests either that this shift doesn’t interest us because it affects outsiders, or that we no longer consider torture or near-torture to be beyond the bounds of civil conduct.
The argument that I have heard from many countrymen, as well as from the administration, is that torture may be necessary in some cases to save lives. That is naked Consequentialism.
The Church clearly teaches that torture is an intrisically evil act which no intended or actual good result can ever mitigate. Against Consequentialism, She teaches that it is never permissible to do evil that good may come of it.
(Hat Tip: Father Jim)