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2007-03-20 issue:

‘Jack Bauer is a criminal’

Mediaculture column

by Gordon Houser

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The popular and Emmy-winning counterterrorism drama series “24” is in its sixth season. Its white-knuckle suspense makes it appealing to watch, but what values does it promote? And does it affect the broader political arena?

Each season of “24” depicts a day (each episode one hour of that day) in which the United States faces a major terrorist threat. Jack Bauer, a heroic C.T.U. (a fictional Counter Terrorism Unit) agent, must solve the complicated conspiracy each season presents and overcome the perpetrators. The terrorists are poised to use nuclear bombs or bioweapons or in some way destroy thousands of lives.

Each season presents the dilemma of what to do when faced with an imminent threat: a resistant suspect has information that may save many lives, and he may either be given due process or tortured. Bauer chooses torture, and it almost always works. Herein lies one of the main problems with “24”—it is both unrealistic and unethical.

Perhaps a TV show should not be called unethical. After all, it’s just a show. And many shows are unrealistic. The problem arises when you track the effect of the show.

Jane Mayer points out in her article “Whatever It Takes” (The New Yorker, Feb. 19 & 26) that U.S. military and F.B.I. interrogators say that “the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect” and “had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers.”
Mayer quotes Gary Solis, a retired law professor who designed and taught the Law of War for Commanders curriculum at West Point as saying that under both U.S. and international law, “Jack Bauer is a criminal. In real life, he would be prosecuted.” Yet many of his students—and many soldiers and many viewers—say, “Whatever it takes.”

According to most terrorism experts, the “ticking time bomb” situation almost never occurs. Joe Navarro, one of the F.B.I.’s top experts in questioning techniques, said in reference to Bauer’s calm demeanor after torturing someone: “Only a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don’t want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy and tend to have grotesque other problems.” Navarro, who has conducted some 12,000 interrogations, said that “torture was not an effective response.”

“The notion that physical coercion in interrogations is unreliable,” writes Mayer, “although widespread among military intelligence officers and F.B.I. agents, has been firmly rejected by the Bush Administration.”

Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq, said that DVDs of “24” circulate widely among the soldiers there, and he knew of instances in which interrogators copied a technique they saw on the show. However, he said, “In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence.”

Lagouranis said that the U.S. military and the F.B.I. teach real intelligence professionals to use “rapport-building,” the slow process of winning over informants, which is the method that generally works best.

Despite the testimony of these experts to the team that creates “24,” it is doubtful the show will make many changes because of it. It makes a lot of money for Fox, and Joel Surnow, the show’s co-creator and executive producer, is a self-proclaimed conservative who also wants to make a show that presents Senator Joseph McCarthy in a positive light.

We, at least, can learn to be more discerning viewers and not accept what TV shows use as real or necessary. Watch how you watch.

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