Torture as Terrorism

I'm sure others have had this thought but, despite the vagueness of these two concepts, it seems plausible to think that the former is a species of the latter. Torture does seem to be the use of violence and threats thereof to induce terror as a means of achieving political ends. If this is correct, then the use of torture as a weapon in the "war" against terrorism may be particularly problematic.

This is not to suggest that torture is never warranted, since it clearly is in "A-bomb in Manhattan" cases. Philosophers have thought about those cases for years, and they're widely-discussed now for obvious reasons. The case is this: we capture Smith, who has placed a nuclear bomb in Manhattan and set it to go off in one hour. There is no way to evacuate the island in time, but Smith won't tell us where the bomb is. We know that Smith is likely to cave under severe physical and mental abuse. So: should we torture Smith and save millions or not? The answer seems obvious.

This case tells us little about the permissibility of using torture in more ordinary cases, especially since we rarely have the kind of certainty about the guilt of the potential torture victim that we have simply stipulated in the Manhattan case. One objection to the use of torture in real cases is that it is inevitable that it will be used against innocents in some cases. But the Manhattan case does seem to indicate that torture is permissible in principle, and permissible in certain exceptional actual cases.

But if torture is sometimes permissible and if torture is a form of terrorism, then terrorism is sometimes permissible. One might, of course, concoct cases concerning other types of terrorism that are analogous to the Manhattan case. For example: the entire U.S. will be destroyed if we don't perpetrate some relatively minor act of terrorism against a country that threatens us.

The United States has engaged in terrorism in the past, most notably in WWII, mostly notably in the form of strategic bombing, most notably the incindiary attacks on Japanese cities. The avowed purpose of such attacks was to generate terror in the population in order to destroy the will to fight.

Of course from the mere fact that we did it it does not follow that it was permissible to do so, and there are many reasons to believe that it was not. But many of those who believe that our past acts of terrorism and our current alleged acts of torture are justified also seem to have committed themselves to the position that the war on terrorism is justified because terrorism is an unmitigated evil.

But the above reflections indicate that at least some people (fervent supporters of the war on terrorism in particular) may be committed to the claim that acts of terrorism must be evaluated individually. Particularly heinous acts of terrorism, such as those on 9/11, seem impossible to justify. On the other hand, that conclusion may depend on some controversial empirical claims. Why were the 9/11 attacks carried out? To what extent is the United States responsible for suffering in the Middle East? Was the U.S. responsive to other efforts to change its foreign policy? And so forth.

Interestingly, those kinds of questions have been raised by some on the left in an effort to suggest that the 9/11 attacks may not simply have been irrational acts of pure evil. Thus it seems that some on the right and some on the left can agree that torture and other varieties of terrorism may sometimes be warranted.