A response to Arar

When a person undeniably has information of value, at what cost do we honor his or her wellbeing when lives could be saved through torture? Firstly, one must establish that this person very likely or does in fact have such valued information. Maher Arar, seemingly against all forms of torture, uses the example of a policeman torturing someone at a crime scene merely because he believes that person is the perpetrator of a crime. Arar is trying to show that deeming torture acceptable or unacceptable based on guilt or innocence is no different than accepting this policeman story. I find this analogy very unconvincing. Arar assumes that guilt in the case of the policeman is determined by some feeling or “just because I know it is” type of reasoning. If this were the basis for determining guilt or innocence, I would agree with him that torture in this case is wrong. However, being found guilty under more convincing methods (such as a trial and jury perhaps) changes the validity of the man’s guilt. If the man is found guilty under more reliable methods, torture is more acceptable to possibly save a life or solve the remainder of the crime. I think I understand what Arar was actually trying to get at in his article, though. In the case of the United States, they are acting more as the policeman who deals out guilt and innocence based on a gut feeling. If this is true, then we should seek to change how guilt and innocence is determined by the United States. However, we don’t get “torture is always immoral” from such a case.