We recently saw the movie Rendition with Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, and Alan Arkin. If you haven't seen it I recommend that you do; all Americans should see it. You may think it has an anti-American slant due to a few less than sympathetic U.S. politicians and the viewer's immediate empathy for the man taken and his wife and family, but it really doesn't. The movie portrays several angles of this complicated issue of what to do with someone you think might be a terrorist.
Three points stand out for me:
- is it right to sacrifice the rights of one individual for the sake of others?
- how far are you willing to go to obtain information that may possibly save the lives of others? (think Milgram experiment)
- can you even trust the information you get from someone who was tortured?
And assuming you can answer these, how does a country as a whole, a country with citizens with vastly different beliefs about what is 'right' and 'wrong', come to agreement on policies for how to deal with a possible potential terrorist?
For me, the answer lies in the oath doctor's take: "First do no harm." I don't believe that hurting Human A in order to perhaps protect Humans A, B, and C is ethical. What kind of a person can be comfortable with violence of this sort for a possible payoff? Is violence/torture justified for any payoff? How much of a payoff would make it acceptable? I believe it's this domineering, imperialist attitude we have that prompts those less powerful to lash out at us in the first place. Add to that the fact that much of the information obtained through torture is untrue and unhelpful. The bottom line is, this brutal practice is unethical. Our nation likes to think itself kind and good. We are, sometimes, kind and good... we should do more of those things instead.
As a side note, Saeed is teaching a course on emotion and has decided to use this movie with his students. After we watched the movie we listened to the director discuss the issues involved in this story and one of the comments he made was about the complexity of emotions that are experienced by the characters. It'll be a great teaching tool.
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