The issue isn’t officially on the congressional calendar this week, but torture is likely to dominate the debate in DC this week, with White House lobbying, negotiations, and media attention focused on debate. Paul Krugman takes a step back, however, and asks a big-picture question that doesn’t get enough attention: “Why is Mr. Bush so determined to engage in torture?” It’s true; we don’t quite know for sure.
Krugman has a theory: the Bush administration is so determined to torture people “to show that it can.”
The central drive of the Bush administration — more fundamental than any particular policy — has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.
It’s a compelling explanation. As we talked about earlier, John Yoo, who helped shape the administration’s policies in this area, believes in acquiring additional executive branch power just for the sake of having it. Under this approach, Bush wants the power to torture in large part because he doesn’t want anyone or anything telling him he doesn’t have the power to torture.
There is, however, an even more persuasive explanation.
I think Ezra has it right.
The Bush administration’s approach to the War on Terrorism has bespoke a profound immaturity on the subject. While the intelligence community easily separates the current conflict from an episode of 24, there’s precious little evidence that Bush is similarly adept. I’d guess that some tough-talking hero-type from the CIA has Bush’s ear and trust and has convinced him that torture is a necessary element of America’s strength in this conflict.
While other spooks (and the US Army) deride the effectiveness of harsh methods, there’s no doubt that they have a certain superficial claim to usefulness. In an administration with no interest in empiricism and a demonstrated proclivity towards favoring information that accords with their instincts, trumping the data dismissing torture’s effectiveness probably wasn’t hard at all.
I definitely agree. On the surface, this may seems absurd. It’s pretty obvious that torture doesn’t work. Indeed, it hasn’t even worked for Bush, with his administration acting on bogus tips “coerced” from detainees, who felt compelled to tell officials what they wanted to hear, just to make the torture stop.
For the reality-based community, evidence like this matters. If we want reliable intelligence, and torture produces unreliable intelligence, there’s no point in embracing torture. (This, of course, is purely a practical argument, and puts aside the fact that torture is morally repugnant under all circumstances.)
But this doesn’t apply to the Bush gang at all — because they’ve proven that evidence and reality aren’t terribly important to them. Indeed, these are the folks who create their own reality. “Why is Mr. Bush so determined to engage in torture?” Because he’s convinced — or, more likely, someone has convinced him — that it’s a necessary tool in his arsenal. Whether it is or not is irrelevant.