Global Policy Forum

by Jim Rutenberg

In many quarters, the Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter is considered a liberal. Yet there he was last week, raising this question:

"In this autumn of anger," he wrote, "even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to . . . torture." He added that he was not necessarily advocating the use of "cattle prods or rubber hoses" on men detained in the investigation into the terrorist attacks. Only, "something to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history."

The column — which ran under the headline "Time to Think About Torture" — set off alarm bells at human rights organizations. The sense of alarm was heightened because Mr. Alter is just one of a growing number of voices in the mainstream news media raising, if not necessarily agreeing with, the idea of torturing terrorism suspects or detainees who refuse to talk.

On Thursday night, on the Fox News Channel, the anchor Shepard Smith introduced a segment asking, "Should law enforcement be allowed to do anything, even terrible things, to make suspects spill the beans? Jon DuPre reports. You decide."

One week earlier, on CNN's "Crossfire," the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said: "Torture is bad." But he added: "Keep in mind, some things are worse. And under certain circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils. Because some evils are pretty evil."

The legitimacy of torture as an investigative tool is the latest in a progression of disturbing and horrific topics the news media is now presenting to its audience, like the potential of an Ebola attack on an American city or a terrorist nuclear strike, the kind that, as an article in The Economist put it in its latest issue, could cause the disappearance of everything below Gramercy Park in Manhattan.

Some human rights advocates say they do not mind theoretical discussions about torture, as long as disapproval is expressed at the end. But they say that weighing the issue as a real possible course of action could begin the process of legitimizing a barbaric form of interrogation.

Journalists are approaching the subject cautiously. But some said last week they were duty-bound to address it when suspects and detainees who have refused to talk could have information that could save thousands of lives. Plus, they added, torture is already a topic of discussion in bars, on commuter trains, and at dinner tables. And lastly, they said, well, this is war.

The historian Jay Winik, in an opinion article on Oct. 23 in The Wall Street Journal, detailed the reported torture in 1995 of the convicted terrorist plotter Abdul Hakim Murad by Philippine authorities that led to the foiling of a plot to crash nearly a dozen United States commercial airplanes into the Pacific and another into C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia. Mr. Winik went on to write, "One wonders, of course, what would have happened if Murad had been in American custody?" He did not, however, endorse the use of torture but suggested the United States may have to significantly curtail civil liberties, as it had done in past wars.

In Slate, the online magazine, Dahlia Lithwick wrote, "There's no doubt that torturing terrorists and their associates for information works." But the Oct. 19 article, "Tortured Justice," primarily raised a host of moral and legal problems associated with torture.

Mr. Alter said he was surprised that his column did not provoke a significant flood of e-mail messages or letters. And perhaps even more surprising, he said, was that he had been approached by "people who might be described as being on the left whispering, `I agree with you.' "

The problem with those comments, he said, was that they presumed that by writing about torture, Mr. Alter was advocating it, which he said he was not doing, as evident in his point about torture producing false information. ("I'm in favor of court-sanctioned sodium pentothal," he said in an interview. "I'm against court-sanctioned, physical torture.")

The Fox News Channel was less apologetic about its report on Thursday night, in which advocates for torture said desperate times called for desperate measures and critics said that by abusing suspects the United States would lose its moral standing in pressuring other governments on human rights violations.

"They're sitting around and not talking and may have information that could save American lives here and abroad," Bill Shine, the executive producer of the Fox News Channel, said of current government detainees. "And people are starting to say how can we get information out of them," he added, "while respecting their constitutional rights."

Mr. Shine, however, said he was amazed that it was a subject for a news report at all. "It shows you where we are now," he said.

But where Fox News Channel was willing to run a traditional, network- news style segment on the pros and cons of torture and "suspending writ of habeas corpus," the broadcast news divisions have shied away from doing the same.

Jim Murphy, the executive producer of "Evening News with Dan Rather" on CBS, said he would address the topic only if a CBS News correspondent found that law enforcement was seriously considering using torture. He said that speculation about torture and discussion of its merits were, for now, best left to talk shows and columnists.

"At this point, for me, it is being covered where it belongs to be covered," he said. Until his network is presented with real evidence that torture is being used or being considered, he added, "It's like the conversation you or I would have at dinner: `I wonder if we should torture?' "

Of course, even that level of discourse is considerably disturbing to groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which criticize the use of torture by regimes around the world. And yet, even their leaders said they understood the source of the sentiments.

"It reflects people's fear, and the somewhat unexamined instinct to do whatever it takes to meet the threat," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "And when people step back for a moment, they understand there are reasons why you don't want to open the door."

Mr. Roth said he had appeared on CNN and Fox News Channel to discuss those reasons, chief among them that torture often produces false information and that various international laws forbid it.

Mr. Roth and the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, Curt Goering, said they believed that if the discussion of torture grew, they would be able to counter it on television or in print.

Mr. Roth said he was heartened by one thing. "To the government's credit," he said, "it's not the government proposing this. It's various commentators."

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