Recently, Vice President Richard Cheney made an appeal to Republican senators to allow for CIA exemptions from a proposed ban on the torture of terrorist suspects in United States' custody. There should be no blanket exception for torture. The use of extreme measures should be reserved for when a country faces an immediate existential threat, such as an imminent nuclear attack, and any individual authorizing situational measures should be forced to defend them after the event. The United States must not support torture as a government policy because it erodes the moral values upon which the United States was built and for which it fights. With each torture case that unfolds, the United States further loses its legitimacy abroad as a world power that espouses freedom.

In "Just and Unjust Wars," Michael Walzer addresses and rejects a "sliding scale" theory of war. This theory attempts to justify allowing armies to violate their own laws on war, condoning the use of torture and cruelty if the inflictors are fighting for a "just" cause against unjust enemies. Dick Cheney advocates this doctrine. This policy allows previously inadmissible behavior from soldiers who have a "just" cause, or who believe they have a "just" cause.

However, this license to supersede the law eventually makes the law meaningless and erodes the morality of a country. Allowing the regular torture of terror suspects gives American soldiers carte blanche, allowing them to take out their aggression on any single suspect. Because of this theory, we arrive at incidents such as Abu Ghraib.

Walzer's arguments regarding the case of extremity may provide a useful framework for viewing the issue of torture. According to Walzer's arguments, government officials and soldiers must "do justice unless the heavens are [really] about to fall." In this case, the rules and laws of war are still intact when violated because the country exhausts every possible resource before passing the threshold of legality. In contrast, the former case systematically violates the laws on a regular basis, so that after a time, they become utterly meaningless or do not even exist. In the latter case, a soldier or government official who passes this threshold must bear the responsibility of his actions both morally and legally. After an incident of torture or some other violation of human rights, the person who made the decision must present that he had just cause to violate the prisoner's rights beforehand. Otherwise, the perpetrator may face imprisonment. Such a system prevents the arbitrary and often abusive overuse of force that we've seen exposed.

Dick Cheney may argue that we face dire circumstances every day, and that the only way to protect the United States is to allow the CIA to regularly torture terror suspects. These claims are exaggerated. We can all tell the difference between trying to find a terrorist on the run and trying to prevent an imminent terrorist attack from taking place, like the explosion of a nuclear bomb on American soil. The latter might merit the use of extreme measures out of necessity; the former does not.

A country like the United States must be wary of the lessons its policies teach. A vice president publicly supporting torture on international television erodes the moral values of a nation. It teaches citizens that it is morally and legally permissible to break the rules in order to achieve the greater good, which leads to an unnecessary abuse of prisoners and power. The American system of rules and laws exists to preserve freedom and maintain order. Our foreign policy cannot be contrary to this purpose.

Serviansky can be reached at mserviansky09@amherst.edu