On February 5, 2013
If we stoop to the vile, deplorable methods of our basest enemies, how is our cause any worthier than theirs? We in the West stand for liberty, justice, and the rule of law. Inalienable human rights and human dignity are at the very heart of what we are as a civilization. And yet… And yet, we are all too quick to embrace the opportunity (and convenient excuse) offered by the bête noire du jour (once communism, now terrorism) to throw our most cherished principles — the very values for which our forbears fought and died — into the foulest muck by indulging in the dark ‘arts’ of torture and assassination.. And make no mistake about it: In the wake of 9/11, torture and assassination (in the form of lethal drone strikes) have become routine implements of state policy and practice in the West. The extent to which torture was used in tracking down the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Ladin, is a disputed matter. What is clear is that the Hollywood film “Zero Dark Thirty” posits that torture was instrumental in locating America’s most wanted mass murderer. What is noxious about the film (which has garnered considered box office and critical success) is its complete dearth of moral qualms about such repellant abuse of prisoners. Nor is the film at all reticent about showing us horrors like waterboarding with its camera’s unblinking (and unjudging) eye. Stephen Bede Scharper takes the film to task for these failings in “In Torture We Trust?” at: https://artsforum.ca/ideas/the-wide-world