Four months ago, American journalist James Foley was executed by the Islamic State (IS). Two days ago, Luke Somers, another American photojournalist, was killed in a US lead kidnapping rescue operation in Yemen. That same day, six detainees at Guantanamo Bay were transferred, as refugees, to Uruguay. Tuesday, the widely anticipated 'Senate Torture Report' is expected to be released in full.
As we continue to revisit our torture policies, and address the political kidnapping of American journalists, both practices are very much a part of our contemporary national psyche. Global Post's Charlie Sennott joined Boston Public Radio's Jim Braude and Margery Eagan for a conversation about both torture and kidnapping— which are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin.
As the line between State actors and private actors continues to blur, the time has come, Sennott argues, to deepen the debate beyond the question of efficacy, and beyond the and the "no pay" or "no choice" policies we have resurrected around them. When faced with such complex equations, he asks "what else can we do?" Meaning perhaps, 'what other tools do we have?'
His own answer is humble:
I don't know. It's above my ability to make a moral judgment on whether it is better to pay these terrorist organizations for a human life, or not pay them, and recognize that if you do pay them, you're going to be creating a perverse incentive for them to do more of this.
Global conflict resolution is fraught, and its successes often contested, but, Sennott wonders if more conversation might facilitate different outcomes, and open up possibilities. He points to conflict histories as unique and profound as the Spanish, British, and Israeli to demonstrate why kidnapping and torture both deepen wounds without hastening peace. The lessons, he says, are clear, "if you don't at least create some dialogue...people are just going to be killed."
Those lessons are not being entirely ignored. The Obama administration is reviewing its hostage policies, and making slow changes to the government's stance on torture. "That doesn't mean they're going to start paying terrorists, or that they ever will," Sennott reminds, but they are open to changing the way they deal with families and organize accounts. Openness and transparency, Sennott says, may be the key:
We are on a slide down into a darker area than we have ever thought would be possible. I think we're in uncharted territory. We don't know where we are. We're feeling our way around in this darkness to do what's best...The threat is real, and it's a legitimate concern, but that's always going to be true. At some point we have to have transparency and daylight on what was a failed, flawed policy of torture.
Perhaps dialogue is necessary not just with our enemies, but with ourselves. Both kidnapping and torture force us to address questions of what a human life is worth, and, as John Foley, Jim's father, has repeated, "a human life is worth everything."
>> For more from Charles Sennott, tune in to his full interview on Boston Public Radio above.
