'24' hours of torture-loving

'24' hours of torture-loving
Adam B. Kushner / Washington Examiner | January 26 2006

The new season of "24" has begun and my fellow devotees already have glowing things to say about it. I find the shows so compelling that I never watch them on network television; I wait for the DVD so I can watch them without interruption.

But when I finally get to watch this season, I will come to it with a new sense of skepticism. You see, "24" may not express overt political partisanship, but there's little doubt about its cheap, manipulative messages. For one thing, it rather dislikes people who express doubts about the efficacy, pervasiveness and immediacy of the threat posed by terrorism. Fair enough. For another, the show is ardently, unambiguously, proselytizingly pro-torture.

The arguments for using torture against our enemies in the war on terrorism are straightforward enough. They mostly involve utilitarian calculations of when we can dispense with human freedom in order to protect it. The arguments against using torture are much more subtle. They involve absolutist thoughts about morality and a priori notions of human worth and dignity.

The latter is the better argument. First, American political thought is based on the very concept of freedom protected by law - and it is inalienable, not just limited to American citizens. Second, even the most barbaric terrorists are humans and to dehumanize them specifically to justify torture is exculpate them from responsibility for their actions. Third, it is better - on the rarest of occasions where we have information about a possible strike and a prisoner we know can tell us about it - to break the law that forbids torture than to pass a law that allows it that will surely be abused. (Even though no such law currently exists, the rationale behind this line of thought has already led to abuses by the United States government all across the world; imagine if this sort of behavior were actually formally blessed by Congress.)

But this sort of argumentation about morality - heady and fundamental stuff to ponder in the war on terrorism - is simply trod upon in "24." It is reserved for indecisive, eggheaded technocrats who don't know what it's like to fight terrorists or stop their schemes. The protagonist, Jack Bauer and "24" writ large, are peddling the idea that these people - strawmen, really - are so misguided as not even to merit a counterargument. No, rebuttal in "24" comes by way of its bad guys.

Spoiler alert: What follows will give away essential plots from seasons one through four of "24." If you haven't seen them and think you might, you ought to stop reading now.

During the course of the show's run, there are at least a dozen characters who have been tortured, often in the very office where Bauer's character works, called Counterterrorist Unit. They often are tortured as a matter of first resort and, if they have any, they always yield useful information immediately. Here are a few examples:

Season two opens with a Korean man who, under torture, reveals that a nuclear attack is scheduled to hit Los Angeles that day. In season four, a professional (nonideological) accomplice to a terrorist network comes into the protection of an Amnesty International lawyer obviously meant to be well-intentioned but myopic; when Bauer gets rid of the lawyer (by pretending he has released the accomplice from custody), he recaptures the man and breaks several fingers until he gets useful information.

Season four even sees the secretary of defense, meant to represent a steely and smart man, approve the "interrogation" of his own son, who he believes may have had a role in his kidnapping.

None of this renders "24" any less of a compelling show. But it does make it easy for me and other viewers - even those of us with deep moral problems with torture - to forget not only that these hypothetical scenarios are unspeakably rare, but that torture almost never yields useful information (under coercion, a prisoner will say anything). I can't wait for the DVD of season five, but I know I'll be careful to watch for its manipulations.