Psyche, Science, and Society

Clinton take a moral position on “torture,” or does she?

October 16th, 2007

I recently pointed to disturbing equivocating comments by Hillary Clinton on the CIA’s “enhanced techniques:

“It is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn’t doing. We’re getting all kinds of mixed messages,” Clinton said. “I don’t think we’ll know the truth until we have a new president. I think [until] you can get in there and actually bore into what’s been going on, you’re not going to know.”

In the interests of full coverage, I feel bound to point out that yesterday, on ABC’s The VIEW she made a much clearer statement regarding torture:

“I think it’s really important for the United States to make it absolutely clear that as a policy we don’t conduct or condone torture,” Clinton said, to audience applause.

Clinton lamented what she views to be the United States loss of moral authority on the world stage and cast doubt on the value of intelligence gathered using such harsh tactics.

“We also have to be smarter about how we interrogate,” the New York Senator said. “There’s a lot of evidence that says you don’t get accurate, good information from extreme measures.”

Despite what the Raw Story article says, the video there shows that there was no direct reference to the CIA’s “enhanced techniques” on The VIEW.  So it isn’t clear yet whether she is now taking a clearer position or, rather, whether she is playing the word parsing game so beloved by the current administration and by the American Psychological Association: “We don’t torture, because nothing we do is torture.” Or, as another Clinton famously clarified: “It all depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

One technical difficulty, of course, is that it may be the case that some of the abusive techniques the US uses are not “torture” but rather fit the classification of “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment,” which is also illegal,but, thanks to the US Reservations to the UN Convention on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or punishment, is, in the US,  subject to complex legal interpretations. [See David Luban's explanations here and here.]

Perhaps some reporter aware of these subtleties will pursue this and clarify her exact position on abusive interrogations of all kinds.

Entry Filed under: Constitutional Law, Electoral Politics, International Law, Interrogation, Law, Politics, Torture