Amy Davidson, writing at The New Yorker's News Desk blog here, captures the unreality of the world we glimpse while reading the Office of Legal Counsel's torture memos. Our experience of this world is something like that of reading an essay written entirely in the truncated passive voice. ("John hit the ball" is a sentence in the active voice; "The ball was hit by John" is in the passive voice; and "The ball was hit," wherein the subject of the sentence is elided, is an example of the truncated passive.)
Let us assume a decision had been made--(truncated passive)--to torture "high-value detainees." Well, there is a problem. Torture is against the law. What to do about that? You can start by not calling it torture but, say, "an alternative set of procedures" or "enhanced interrogation techniques." You can add a layer of obfuscation by having the people who perform the hands-on torture seek the legal advice of lawyers who themselves work for the same people who, sitting in their offices in Washington, have decided to resort to an alternative set of procedures. The lawyers naturally conclude that the alternative set of procedures is not torture. So now, when you torture, you are "acting in good faith" since, after all, you sought, received, and acted upon the advice of legal counsel. And regarding the lawyers who advised you? For them, too, it seems it is a question of acting in good faith. And, as Davidson points out, you cannot "look in a person's heart and know whether the deluded thing they said was something they actually believed." The question of whether the lawyers acted in good faith comes down to whether they kept a straight face. If you read the memos you know very well that they did indeed keep a straight face.
The prisoners were tortured--(truncated passive)--but it seems that no one is responsible for having tortured them.
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