Clifton Griffin

This post is a “guest post” written by my father, who shares my name. It is an insightful critique of torture and our modern understanding of warfare. Enjoy.

We live in perilous times made more so by our increasingly naïve perception of the world we live in. Today, we are consumed by a discussion of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” which some have described as torture. “Torture” is a loaded word in this context. Take a survey asking if “torture” should be allowed in the interrogation of prisoners and the answer would probably be an overwhelming “NO”.

The problem is, torture escapes easy definition. Example: Put someone in a safety harness, attach them to a safety cable and put them on a narrow walkway 1500 ft in the air. Then ask questions about something they want to keep secret. For some, this would simply be high adventure. They would assess the cables and harnesses and determine that there was nothing to fear. They would laugh at attempts to scare them into revealing anything. For others, they would be babbling uncontrollably before they got to the top of the platform. They would terrorized by the situation. “Torture?”

For the second group yes, for the first group, no.

Torture is also a comparative word. Is waterboarding on the same level as hanging someone by their thumbs? Is it on the same level as sleep deprivation? How about bamboo shoots under the fingernails? Beating the bottoms of their feet with a rod?

I would be uncomfortable with all of these. I would make a poor torturer. I don’t have the stomach for it. At least not sitting at my desk typing this. However, kidnap my daughter, son, wife etc. and then give me access to someone who may have important information as to their whereabouts, and none of the above methods would seem too extreme. As John McCain said, “you do what you have to do.”

This was the situation shortly after 9/11/2001. We were in the dark as to the capability, the plan, or the likelihood of another attack. People charged with the welfare of the nation, having failed to prevent one horrific attack did what they had to do. Not because they enjoyed it or wanted to do it but because of fear of another attack and more American deaths. Denying that this is sometimes reasonable and necessary is to deny the reality of the world we live in. How did we come to this mindset?

If we go back to World War II, “The Good War”, as it has been called, as a starting point, though certainly not “THE” starting point, we can see a steady progression of good intentions but unfortunately muddled thinking. WWII was unique in many ways, not the least of which was the near unanimity about who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Of course, this is a generality, but a useful one. The Geneva Convention had provided a frame work for the treatment of prisoners which was followed at some level by the Allies (though it would be naïve to assume complete and universal adherence), to a lesser degree by Germany, and almost not at all by Japan. Again, we are speaking in general characterizations. It was based on the notion of civilized nations behaving somewhat like teams in a sporting event. When a prisoner was taken, he was effectively removed from the playing field, so to speak, and therefore to be treated humanely and decently until the end of the conflict. The prisoner had an assumed duty to try to escape if he could do so: it was part of the game. It points out the naïve nature of the system. While on the battlefield kill and kill alike, but once a prisoner, you are out of the game and receive a special status. Is it any wonder that some nations disregarded this idea completely? In fact, the bigger wonder is that it was adhered to so well by so many.

Meanwhile, the powers on all sides were engaged in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. Millions upon millions died. Toward the end of the war, Churchill made the decision to fire bomb the city of Dresden. Was it necessary to win the war? Doubtful. Truman made the calculation that utterly destroying both Nagasaki and Hiroshima was in the best interest of saving the lives of American military personnel, after bloody pitched battles to secure various islands on the path to the mainland. The cost of an invasion of the Japanese mainland was unimaginable, yet ending the war without the complete surrender of Japan was unacceptable.

The one constant here was that wars were between countries, not just governments and their militaries. Civilians were part of the war. One hears very little of a counter insurgency in Germany after the surrender. Was there one? Not so you’d notice. Why? The country was utterly and totally exhausted and devastated. There was no appetite for a continued struggle. There was no question in anybody’s mind as to the extent and totality of the defeat. The same was generally true of Japan as well.

In the wars since, there has been a very “enlightened” approach to military conflict. We have somehow reached the conclusion that wars are between governments and militaries and not civilians. Thus we go to tremendous extremes to avoid the killing of civilians. When civilians are accidentally killed, we cry “foul!”, as though killing and dying are not part of the process of war. This is totally nonsensical. This is muddle headed thinking.

One can debate endlessly the reasoning and wisdom of invading Iraq but it is a pointless debate. It has been done, and we must figure a way to end it in the best interest of our country. What are not debatable are the consequences of trying so desperately to shield the Iraqi people from the effects of the war. To name just a few:

1. The Iraqi insurgency quickly realized that operating from among the civilian population was an effective shield from the US military.
2. The Iraqi insurgency quickly realized that mosques and religious sites were safe zones.
3. By shielding the civilian population we also shielded and indeed, purposefully spared the infrastructure – result detonating bombs by cell phone. Why should a defeated people enjoy a cell phone network?
4. Most of the Iraqi people, even today, do not consider themselves to have been defeated.

There are more, and all of them have resulted in increased casualties for the US.

This is not a call for the wanton killing of civilians. It is a clarion call to understand war for what it is. If, in the lead up to the current Iraq conflict, the war had been calculated as to what it would take to totally defeat (as in Germany or Japan) the country of Iraq, one has to wonder if we would have fought the war at all. By realizing that wars are between countries and not just governments and militaries, and that winning will require civilian casualties (lots of them) and an utterly devastated infrastructure and lead to decades of future suffering for those left behind, one can then make a clear assessment of the risks and rewards for starting a war.

Recognizing war for what it is forces a realistic assessment of its consequences. Put in this perspective, how many conflicts since WWII would we have waged?

• Korea?
• Vietnam?
• Gulf War?
• Iraq War?

There are others.

To bring this full circle, we do ourselves and the country a disservice if we continue to see the world, not as it is but as we wish it to be. As Machiavelli said, “Many men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.” And again, he said, ”The answer is of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.”

Disallowing the use of “torture” in all circumstances may make us feel good about our selves and our principles but it will undermine the healthy fear that serves to dampen the enthusiasm of our enemies and it will do nothing to earn their love. They have already determined that we have irreconcilable differences and are willing, no matter the cost, to pursue their objectives.

It’s time to get our head out of the sand. It is time to stop the muddle-headed thinking.