Torture: Moral Defeat

On Dec. 10, 1984, an international convention to fight against torture was signed under the auspices of the United Nations. Thirty years later, a U.S. Senate committee confirmed that, under the Bush administration, interrogation methods were used that could, without exaggeration, be classified as acts of torture.

In 30 years, then, the world has not eradicated torture — not even the great democracies inclined to give lessons to others. On Wednesday Sept. 10, an official investigation, made partially public, revealed the excesses of American security services, accepting the risk of giving food for thought to all those who see America as the great enemy. But this effort at transparency, as exemplary as it was, cannot exonerate the U.S. from its original sin.

The other lesson from the Senate report is in the analysis, which determined that the violence was not effective. It hasn’t broken the terrorists’ willpower, it has not helped to thwart attacks; it may have, instead, strengthened the criminals’ resolve. Yet this argument of effectiveness, of the prevention of terrible deeds, has always been used to justify the use of torture. Madame Collard, raising this debate on French soil, posed the question in these terms: “What would you do, yourself?” Even if these violent methods proved to be effective, would they be morally justifiable?

To avoid leaving every individual, every policeman and every soldier with the responsibility of answering such a dilemma, we must adopt laws and international treaties that set limits that we must respect. The torture practiced in an all too ordinary way by dictators, oppressive regimes and jihadi groups signals its inhumanity. To fight against the dangers of terrorism, democracies, in the name of the values they claim to represent, must resist the temptation to use the same degrading methods as those whom they are fighting against. Adopting their weapons and their contempt of human dignity only serves to give them the victory.