Keifer and George

In the past couple years I've gotten into watching shows on DVD. There're no commercials, and you can watch as many episodes in a stretch as you want or have time to. So my wife and I borrowed the first two seasons of the Fox series 24 from a neighbor, and I have to say, the first season really hooked us. Cliche dramatics notwithstanding, this is a serious first-rate, keep-em-guessing, edge-of-your-seat thriller.

After finishing the first season, I was pumped to move on to the second. But somewhere a long the way, I became very disturbed by the themes and messages in this show. The storyline of the second season revolves around a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb somewhere in the continental U.S. High stakes indeed, and the hero of the show, played by Keifer Sutherland, does whatever the writers portray as "necessary" to prevent this from happening. During the first episode, Sutherland's character, Jack Bauer, shoots point-blank, then decapitates, an unarmed prisoner awaiting trial, so that he can use the head of this man to gain credibility with a group of criminals he is infilitrating to acquire important information about the terrorist plot.

Also, in various episodes in Season Two, and I am told subsequent seasons, Jack Bauer tortures with his enemies with various tactics, to acquire important information for saving the world.

The creators of this show aren't interested in the nuances of human character and motivation. The stories in 24 are crafted so that the audience will have total confidence that Jack is the Good Guy, through and through, and that the people he's countering are quintecientially, ontologically evil. We, the viewers, may have each upcoming plot-twist withheld from us until just the right moment, but we are at all times given a view of the Bad Guys' deeds and desires, so that we'll know the threat is real.

And this lets us know that Jack is our man - he knows what's really at stake, and whenever he does something that seems vicious or irrational, we need to just trust him, and we're always own within the next episode or so that he always makes the right choices, that his unorthodox, go-it-alone tactics are always for the best.

This show has been a smash hit for about five years now. And it came to my mind this past week as I read and listened to President George W. Bush's comments regarding the bill submitted by the Senate Armed Services committee to which would, among other things, strike down the CIA's license to "alternative interrogation techniques" (torture). Read about the bill here.

The challenge to President Bush comes from many well-respected members of his own party, including Sens. McCain and Graham, as well as former Sec. of State Powell, but in his press conference Friday, and his weekly radio addres, he argued strongly against limiting the powers of the CIA in this respect, with broad remarks that alternative interrogation techniques have saved lots of American lives.

One of Jack Bauer's trademarks is his constant manipulation or sidestepping of the rules of his agency because they keep him from being able to do what he has to do to get the bad guys. I see a real parallel here to Bush's constant emphasis that he doesn't need international approval or US conformity with the Geneva Convention to authorize his foreign policy decisions.

Much has been made of Colin Powell's statement last week that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," which I'd call a long-overdue understatement. I think it's certainly true, but in addition to the importance of this statement for global politics, I'm thinking about the blasphemy inherent in many of the attitudes guiding U.S. foreign policy.

We want to believe the U.S. is like Jack Bauer - all-knowing, always doing the right thing, however grisly its presentation. We may struggle with tactical decisions in the War on Terror, but we are crystal clear that the U.S. is really right about all the stuff that really matters. Broadly speaking, we and are friends are for Freedom, and our enemies are for Tyranny/Terror. And so we let our self-righteousness guide and authorize our actions.

This transgresses all sorts of ethical and theological boundaries. Whether we are persons of faith or simply consciencious citizens of the planet (two categories not mutually exclusive!) the idea is to have principles and ideals, for justice, peace, etc., that transcend us, exist beyond our local interests, so that we can strive for them, be guided by them. When we attempt to take the place of these ideals, or, in faith terms, to take the place of God, by saying we ourselves are actually that which is Right, we commit a most egregious blasphemy and propel ourselves down the path to atrocities. Like torturing people.

And the world where my, and George Bush's, and the CIA's choices and actions are played out is real, not the fantasy arena of a Fox t.v. series.