Perpetrators sanitize abusive interrogation by comparing it to worse alternatives like drone strikes

Evidence

Although they lacked experience in interrogating detainees, the CIA outsourced to them, with a multimillion-dollar contract, the task of designing and implementing the interrogation program at Guantánamo and overseas facilities. … Mitchell minimized the brutality of the practices by advantageous comparisons. “It’s a lot more humane, even if you are going to subject them to harsh techniques, to question them while they are still alive,” he argued, “than it is to kill them and their children and their neighbors with a drone” (Dilanian, 2014). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2378

Categorization

• XREF: This is textbook advantageous comparison, the moral disengagement mechanism Bandura frames the chapter around; connects to the vault’s claims about social-conservatives rationalizing harmful policy by framing it as the lesser evil.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2378