Here's An Example of How Sullivan Blows It

Look, he's posted a reader's email who makes a good point. In his final little aside, however, he has to say "One might ask the same of Glenn Reynolds, but I fear his cooptation by the administration is pretty near complete."

Like it was a goddamn Star Wars movie. What a tool.

The other movie thing that made me suspicious of Sullivan's position was his YouTube clip from the Seige, in which Denzel proudly states to the camera - If you torture this man, we've lost everything we've stood for...blah...blah...blah...and they've won. They've already won!"

Sullivan uses this clip as an example of great screenwriting which summarizes his point exactly. Hmmm.

I don't buy it. I never liked that section of the movie in the first place. I suppose you could make an argument what terrorism is ultimately about collective, mass suicide, that they know they cannot win, but just hope to bring us as low as possible - maybe. But that doesn't really constitute winning, the way I understand it.

But regardless, I'm not sure WE lose everytime we do something morally monsterous. I mean, America in WWII did all sorts of considerably more horrific military tactics than torturing prisoners - specifically - bombing civilian populations to bring our enemies to their knees.

Was this a compromise of our principles?

Again, you could frame an argument that the War on Terror is not WWIII, that we don't need to do this crap, and it's morally wrong. But I'm not buying what I would call "the absolute morally wrong" argument by itself. Because I do believe in the hypothetical situation in which torture was needed to prevent mass death, it would be morally preferable to do so. Therefore, it because a balancing of morals question, and does not fall into the "absolutely morally wrong."

An example of what I would call "absolutely morally wrong," would be Uday Hussein's practice of torturing soccer players after playing poorly. Under no circumstances could one justify this type of torture - for increased performance - or for the purpose of sadistic pleasure. There's a distinction to be made here, and conflating the two as both "torture," misses, I think, the point.