BOB ABERNETHY, host: The situation in Libya remains uncertain. The Gaddafi government Friday (March 18) announced a ceasefire following UN authorization of outside military intervention. On Thursday (March 17), after a week of vigorous international debate, the Security Council approved establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya as well as “all necessary measures” to protect civilians.

What are the moral considerations that should guide a decision to intervene in another country? Kim Lawton took a closer look.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: As the situation continued to deteriorate inside Libya, calls for international military intervention escalated. The UN’s resolution demanded a ceasefire, and if the violence doesn’t end, authorized enforcement of a no-fly zone and pledged to take “any necessary means” to protect civilians. But there are never easy solutions.

Shaun Casey is professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary.

SHAUN CASEY (Wesley Theological Seminary): Whether you act or whether you don’t act, the stakes are really quite high, and that’s what makes it so daunting from a moral perspective: trying to find the right way to know when to intervene and when not to because the consequences, the body counts are quite high.

LAWTON: In the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations hammered out a set of principles known as the “Responsibility to Protect.” The principles say that nations must protect their population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. And if a state doesn’t live up to that responsibility, the international community has a responsibility to step in. The United States has endorsed those principles.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (from Nobel acceptance speech, December 209): I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in the other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later.

LAWTON: According to Casey, the principles draw heavily from the just war tradition, which says there must be a just cause for such intervention.

CASEY: What people need to be looking for, particularly with respect to Libya, is to what extent are war crimes being committed, are innocent people being directly targeted, is there something approaching genocide occurring on the ground at this point?

LAWTON: Once that has been determined, the next questions are who has the authority for approving an intervention and who has the responsibility of carrying it out?

CASEY: Simply because you may have a justification for intervention, that doesn’t answer the “who” question. Should France be the one who intervenes? Should Saudi Arabia intervene? Should the Arab League? Should the Africa Union? There are a lot of regional entities there that may actually have some resources that could be applied militarily.

LAWTON: Atrocities in and of themselves don’t automatically trigger intervention.

CASEY: Sure, we have a commitment to fighting injustice, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to go militarily instantly wherever injustice occurs. We have to ask the question “how large,” and do we actually have the empirical, sort of pragmatic capability to do anything about it?

LAWTON: Casey admits it’s difficult to know where that moral line is.

CASEY: Nobody is going to say, “Well, you have to have 50,000 people die before we go in.” So you have to take it case by case, and certainly in a situation like Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people were butchered, in retrospect you’d say, oh my goodness, of course that was on a scale that would’ve justified intervention.

LAWTON: Another question is whether there is what the just war theory calls a “reasonable chance of success.”

CASEY: So let’s say we do a no fly zone and Gaddafi still sends in ground troops and tanks and manages to defeat the rebels. Does the fact that we established a no fly zone mean we want to actually then put ground troops to deter Gaddafi if he continues to be successful?

LAWTON: Casey says concerns about potential success have so far prevented the international community from intervening in Darfur, even though there is strong consensus that atrocities continue to be committed there. He acknowledges that not acting in a particular situation can also be a moral failure.

CASEY: If you have the ability to intervene and to stop an injustice or stop an atrocity and don’t, I think you do have moral culpability as a result of that.

LAWTON: The moral questions are getting increasingly complicated, and Casey says they’re not going away any time soon.

CASEY: If history’s any guide, we’re going to see more of these failed states and more of these sort of nascent civil wars, and we’re going to be asked a lot more to intervene in these kinds of conflicts.

LAWTON: All the more reason, he says, to stay vigilant in doing the moral calculus.

I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

Tweet

Tweet

BOB ABERNETHY, host: There were controversial developments this week in the debate over how the CIA interrogated terrorism suspects after 9/11. The Justice Department released details of a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report detailing chilling interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. The attorney general ordered an investigation of what happened and appointed a veteran prosecutor to find out.

Did CIA interrogators go beyond the guidance they had? If so, should they be punished, and should Bush administration officials who authorized the techniques also be punished? We explore the moral issues with Shaun Casey, professor of ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. Shaun, welcome. Let me take you back to the atmosphere right after 9/11. There was tremendous pressure on the administration to prevent another attack, to do whatever was necessary, to find out whatever they could about whether there was going to be another attack. Didn’t that justify the interrogation techniques that were put into place?

SHAUN CASEY (Professor Ethics, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC): I would argue that it’s precisely at those moments of crisis that we need to rely on our moral and legal tradition and resist giving up things like respect for the dignity of the human person, and I think that moral tradition argues that no matter who the person is, as a result of that dignity, they shouldn’t be subjected to the kinds of torture we suspect went on.

ABERNETHY: And even if you’re pretty sure you might be able to save several thousand more innocent lives, that would not trump the dignity of the individual prisoner?

PROFESSOR CASEY: What’s interesting even at the time, and now we know for sure, such information did not exist. We did not extract through torture any information that directly led to preventing another similar sort of tragic event. So in essence no, I think we should resist, because we don’t possess that kind of advance knowledge.

ABERNETHY: Apparently the CIA tried hard to keep what was done within the guidelines that existed but that in some cases people did exceed those guidelines. Should they be punished?

PROFESSOR CASEY: Absolutely. I think if in fact we gave guidance to those interrogators, and they still violated those guidelines, there needs to be a moral accountability in order to reinforce this notion that we do respect the dignity of human beings.

ABERNETHY: And what about up the chain of command? If the investigations reveal that high officials, maybe up to the vice president and the president, authorized things that shouldn’t have been done should they be punished?

PROFESSOR CASEY: I think they should be held morally accountable, and that doesn’t necessarily mean criminalization or actual legal punishment, but I think in a democracy that espouses certain moral values we need to have accountability, not only of what has happened, but it also prepares us morally to face the future when we may find ourselves in a similar sort of situation when we’re facing a crisis and we face pressure to abandon legal and moral precedents that we’ve observed.

ABERNETHY: But if a new administration can have a criminal investigation of it’s predecessor and put people perhaps on trial, that creates an enormous partisan gridlock and nothing else would be done.

PROFESSOR CASEY: Well, that’s right, and I think that’s what the president is struggling with right now. We’re looking at simply about 10 cases where he is, actually where the attorney general has asked the prosecutor to investigate. At this point I’m not aware of any attempt for a comprehensive criminal prosecution. On the other hand, I would argue it might be better to think about a bipartisan commission that in a sense grants amnesty legally to all the participants so we can learn what really happened from the top of the system to the bottom, as a way not only of holding them accountable morally but also preparing us to face the future when we may find ourselves under similar circumstances, and I think that’s a way to in a sense take some of the air out of the partisanship which seems to be growing at this time.

ABERNETHY: You have read what you could of the CIA inspector general’s report in 2004. Quickly, can you sum it up? What did you find? What did they conclude?

PROFESSOR CASEY: They concluded that there weren’t a lot of rules in place, and they had to move very quickly to give guidelines, which they did. Secondly, they confessed that some of their own employees violated those guidelines. But perhaps most importantly of all they concluded they cannot say these enhanced interrogation techniques led to unique knowledge that could not have been gotten by other means, and so that really casts a light of doubt on the effectiveness of these techniques.

ABERNETHY: Many thanks to Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary.

Tweet

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In the ongoing national debate about the morality of torture, the question is whether it is ever the lesser evil. We want to identify the underlying principles in the debate, beginning with part of President Obama’s reply at his news conference last Wednesday (April 29) when he was asked whether he thought the Bush administration had sanctioned torture.

President BARAK OBAMA (at White House news conference): What I’ve said, and I will repeat, is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. You start taking short cuts and over time that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

ABERNETHY: But can torture sometimes be justified?

Jean Bethke Elshtain is a professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and at Georgetown University. She joins us from Nashville. Shaun Casey is a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. Welcome to you both. Shaun — never?

Dr. SHAUN CASEY (Professor of Christian Ethics, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC): I think the bulk of the Christian moral tradition says that torture is never morally permissible. If you go to Christian Scripture, you go to the wide arc of Christian social teachings, you get a very consistent historical answer that it is never right to torture another human being.

ABERNETHY: What’s the underlying reason for this?

Dr. CASEY: Well, you look at basic Scripture, you look at Jesus in the Gospels about love your neighbor as yourself, do not repay evil for evil, love your enemy—so there’s this sense that each person is created by God in the image of God and has an inherent dignity, and torture would render that dignity undermined.

ABERNETHY: And Jean, what are the underlying principles for you?

Dr. JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN (Professor of Social and Political Ethics, University of Chicago Divinity School and Georgetown University): Well, the underlying principle for me is what I would call an “ethic of responsibility.” That’s an ethic that is especially important when we’re talking about statesmen and stateswomen who often have the lives of thousands in their hands, quite literally.

ABERNETHY: So they have a different rule, a different ethic, a different moral standard than somebody would if he’s just acting as an individual?

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Not entirely different. We don’t want a huge chasm to emerge. But I would say that there are extraordinary circumstances when harrowing judgments must be made by those we tax with the responsibility of keeping us safe, and at those times there may be a “lesser evil” kind of calculation to be made.

Dr. CASEY: We have about a 60-year tradition of international law and domestic law that regulates the behavior of those who, in fact, are called to be our political leaders and there is a consistent prohibition of the use of torture. In fact, the United States has been a leading catalyst in that international movement, so I agree with that. But I think we have some rules that are in place that prohibit torture.

ABERNETHY: But beyond what’s legal is what’s moral. I mean, they’re not always the same, are they?

Dr. CASEY: That’s true, and as the president said the other night in part of the clip that you played for us, that he believes that a leader in his position who faces those harrowing decisions ultimately is going to decide on both, of the angels and on responsibility if in fact we as a country refrain from using torture.

ABERNETHY: So, Jean, the president then has this primary moral responsibility, would you say, of protecting the people?

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Yes, that’s why we have states. That’s the reason that people made the deal back in the 17th century to organize the state — to prevent capricious power and the slaughter of human beings willy-nilly. That’s the reason we have states and have leaders to protect us.

ABERNETHY: And do you think people generally, American people, expect that a president will, somebody has written, have, you know, has to have dirty hands?

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Well, the problem of dirty hands is a perennial problem in politics. What it means is that one can’t remain absolutely morally pure, that you take actions. You don’t know what the full ramifications of those actions may be. Now I fully agree, by the way, that torture is something that should be ruled out as a general norm. My concern is with certain very specific and tragic circumstances, if there are severe forms of interrogation that may well fall short of torture as we usually understand it but are certainly severe — whether those are permissible.

ABERNETHY: And Shaun, the classic argument for permitting an exception, an extraordinary circumstance is the ticking bomb scenario, you know, that somebody in your custody has information about when a terrible, terrible thing might happen that would cost the lives of thousands of innocent people. Under such circumstances, perhaps others, don’t the people in authority have the responsibility to do something extraordinary if they think that can give them information quickly?

Dr. CASEY: Well, the fist thing we should observe is that there are no historical examples of that being lived out in reality. That’s a hypothetical contrary to fact, that it never obtained in the real world. What I worry about is the lack of rules to govern that exception. Many people argue that because they can create a hypothetical case like this there should be no rules against torture, and I think that is a grave moral error. The problem is we never know if that information can be elicited by other means. There’s no way to verify that, indeed, torture is the only option in those cases. So what happens if you torture that person and you turn out to be wrong, the information proves not to be true? But what do you say then to the person who’s tortured at your hands?

ABERNETHY: Jean, you want to comment on that?

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Yes. I would say that the resort to extreme techniques would be used only after all other possibilities had been exhausted. It wouldn’t be the first resort; it would be the last resort, and again we’d have to be clear about what we’re considering torture here, because some of the most severe forms I think must be ruled out. But there are other forms of enhanced interrogation that, I think, under those extreme circumstances and as an exception, may well, under the ticking time bomb scenario, be resorted to.

ABERNETHY: There is a recent poll by the Pew Research Center that found that 71 percent of Americans — American adults — said torture can be justified often or sometimes or rarely. Only 25 percent said never. Is that influential to you at all?

Dr. CASEY: I think that shows the influence of the Rupert Murdoch school of ethics — that we’ve been watching Jack Bauer, where torture is routinely shown to be effective on our television screens. I don’t think we decide what is moral and what is immoral based on the latest Pew poll about American opinion.

ABERNETHY: Jean, and what do you think of investigation and perhaps prosecution of those who authorized what was done?

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Well, it strikes me that, number one, it would immediately be politicized in a way that would be egregious and unacceptable, and number two, there’d be the question of how far back you go. Extraordinary rendition began under President Clinton, for example. So I think that that kind of going back and second-guessing those who in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were dealing with shock and horror and fear about another imminent attack and were asked by CIA operatives in the field whether certain things were permissible—it strikes me that the best thing for now is to go on and to make clearer what we expect from those who are interrogating even high-value targets and operatives of Al Qaeda, for example.

ABERNETHY: Shaun — investigation, prosecution?

Dr. CASEY: We need a thorough moral accounting of what’s gone on. We’ve had an air of moral permissiveness in the last administration under which tens of thousands of innocent people have been tortured — not simply the special Al Qaeda cases. We need to find out why that happened. We need to find out who was accountable in order to build a very tall wall against this kind of behavior. We need to empower the folks who do the interrogating with very bright lines about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. At this point that, in fact, is not clear.

ABERNETHY: But, quickly, would you come out saying that there could be sometimes an exception to the “never” position?

Dr. CASEY: No.

ABERNETHY: No. Never?

Dr. CASEY: Never.

ABERNETHY: Thanks to Shaun Casey and Jean Bethke Elshtain.

Dr. ELSHTAIN: Thank you.

KIM LAWTON, guest anchor: Mitt Romney’s campaign advisors had been debating for months about whether the candidate should give a frank speech about his Mormon faith. On Thursday (December 6), Romney made that speech. At the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, Romney said he would be true to his Mormon beliefs, but his presidency would not be dictated by them.

MITT ROMNEY (Republican Presidential Candidate): I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law.

LAWTON: Romney also criticized what he called “the religion of secularism” that is trying to push religion out of American public life. Many experts believe the speech was designed to reach out especially to evangelicals who may be uncomfortable with the idea of voting for a Mormon.

Joining me now is Shaun Casey, associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and the author of a book coming out next year about religion and John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. Casey is also an advisor to Senator Barack Obama’s campaign.

Shaun, did Mitt Romney’s speech this week reassure evangelicals and others who might have had concerns about the notion of a Mormon president?

Dr. SHAUN CASEY, (Associate Professor, Christian Ethics, Wesley Theological Seminary): I think the jury’s probably still out on that. I think in terms of rank-and-file evangelicals the speech left a lot to be desired. I think in terms of evangelical leaders, they were pleased with what he said and they, while not having endorsed him, are still considering that option, I think, down the road. I think in terms of the national press the jury is still out. Some people were impressed; some were not. And in terms of Americans beyond that community of evangelicals, it was a pale imitation, I think, of Kennedy’s speech in 1960.

LAWTON: Well, I wanted to ask you about Kennedy’s speech, but first let me just ask you what was it in the speech that maybe didn’t satisfy the rank and file evangelicals?

Dr. CASEY: I think there was one particular dramatic moment when he talked about the question he gets asked about: Who is Jesus and what does he think about him? He gave a great answer in terms of evangelicals where he said Jesus is Lord and Savior of mankind, son of God. But then he said Mormon doctrine essentially differs from there about who Jesus Christ is — from evangelical doctrine. I think a lot of evangelicals at that point left very, very troubled.

LAWTON: Why does it matter? Why does it matter to the voters, you know, what he believes about Jesus?

Dr. CASEY: Well, in the current ethos, the current age, particularly in the Republican Party over the last eight years, it’s been fairly essential that a candidate demonstrate that they are theologically orthodox from a conservative Protestant perspective, and that answer didn’t meet that standard.

LAWTON: Was it a “Kennedyesque” speech? Was it the same thing that Kennedy did when he talked about his Catholicism?

Dr. CASEY: It was similar. I mean, the environment is different, but both were responding to external political forces. Neither candidate wanted to give the speech at that time, but both had to because an opponent was forcing them to that position. Kennedy talked more about separation of church and state, because that was the attack that was launched against him. Romney’s problem is different in the sense that people see his Mormonism as exotic or esoteric, and he has to knock that down without being too explicit about what Mormon doctrine really is.

LAWTON: So, very quickly, what will voters take away from this when they head to the polls?

Dr. CASEY: I think in Iowa he’s still in trouble. I think Mike Huckabee has overtaken him among evangelicals. I don’t think this speech changed that trend.

LAWTON: Okay, we’ll leave it there. Shaun Casey, thank you very much.