Torture advocates frame their argument as taming an existing practice through procedure

Evidence

Richard Cody then argued for the necessity of torture, properly managed. Proper management, sensible policies, agreed procedures-it was possible, after all, to civilise something as barbaric as warfare with the Geneva Convention, and now we needed a Geneva Convention on how we might conduct torture in a civilised fashion. (31, first set of ellipses in the original) Flanagan’s bleak irony is fully employed here: even Cody shocks himself with his tirade, realizing that he doesn’t really believe what he has just said but simply wishes to employ “grand” words to impress the assembled power brokers at Katie Moretti’s party. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 371

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘civilised torture’ argument parallels Morey’s other examples (Ignatieff, Dershowitz) that the reader can set against Hamid’s critique of liberal-rationalist justifications. — connects to: Liberal-rationalist rhetoric can normalize torture as a managed procedure — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 371
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Liberal-rationalist rhetoric can normalize torture as a managed procedure — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 371