Why Terrorism Works by Alan M. Dershowitz

Author:Alan M. Dershowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2002-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

The Three—or Four—Ways

The debate over the use of torture goes back many years, with Bentham supporting it in a limited category of cases, Kant opposing it as part of his categorical imperative against improperly using people as means for achieving noble ends, and Voltaire’s views on the matter being “hopelessly confused.”23 The modern resort to terrorism has renewed the debate over how a rights-based society should respond to the prospect of using nonlethal torture in the ticking bomb situation. In the late 1980s the Israeli government appointed a commission headed by a retired Supreme Court justice to look into precisely that situation. The commission concluded that there are “three ways for solving this grave dilemma between the vital need to preserve the very existence of the state and its citizens, and maintain its character as a law-abiding state.” The first is to allow the security services to continue to fight terrorism in “a twilight zone which is outside the realm of law.” The second is “the way of the hypocrites: they declare that they abide by the rule of law, but turn a blind eye to what goes on beneath the surface.” And the third, “the truthful road of the rule of law,” is that the “law itself must insure a proper framework for the activity” of the security services in seeking to prevent terrorist acts.24

There is of course a fourth road: namely to forgo any use of torture and simply allow the preventable terrorist act to occur.25 After the Supreme Court of Israel outlawed the use of physical pressure, the Israeli security services claimed that, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, at least one preventable act of terrorism had been allowed to take place, one that killed several people when a bus was bombed.26 Whether this claim is true, false, or somewhere in between is difficult to assess.27 But it is clear that if the preventable act of terrorism was of the magnitude of the attacks of September 11, there would be a great outcry in any democracy that had deliberately refused to take available preventive action, even if it required the use of torture. During numerous public appearances since September 11, 2001, I have asked audiences for a show of hands as to how many would support the use of nonlethal torture in a ticking bomb case. Virtually every hand is raised. The few that remain down go up when I ask how many believe that torture would actually be used in such a case.

Law enforcement personnel give similar responses. This can be seen in reports of physical abuse directed against some suspects that have been detained following September 11, reports that have been taken quite seriously by at least one federal judge.28 It is confirmed by the willingness of U.S. law enforcement officials to facilitate the torture of terrorist suspects by repressive regimes allied with our intelligence agencies. As one former CIA operative with thirty years of experience reported: “A lot of people are saying we need someone at the agency who can pull fingernails out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.