I think the real problem here is that torture was apparently not used in the '24' scenario, but rather was used to gin up evidence of an Al Qaeda-Saddam link to justify the war. Once you allow for torture in one situation that seems defensible - the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for example - you open the door for the truly atrocious use of torture like promoting a war on false pretenses.
Pck
· 7 months ago
The ticking time bomb scenario is a myth. I think we would have figured this out at about the 180th time we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
GreenDreams
· 7 months ago
Tony, you and all other soldiers of the USA will be considered "the enemy" and "bad guys" by hostile regimes. They can and will use the same justifications to torture our service personnel. That's why we have international law and treaties. They define what you CAN'T legally do to your enemies. Unless you want your unit, your sons and daughters to be naked and humiliated, urinated and defecated on, and tortured, we must stand steadfastly against these horrors. No matter how evil we think our prisoners are, because we will be considered similarly evil by those who may capture our soldiers.
Ryan
· 7 months ago
If you're not interested in punishing torturers, then I regret to inform you that you are condoning it. Don't feed us this bullshit of "let's move on". What utter cowardice.
D. E.Rodriguez
· 7 months ago
I am sorry, but I find the allegation that "The people of the United States condone domestic torture in the form of whippings, lynchings..." totally irrelevant to the discussion of torture and even gratuitous and an affront to African Americans--and others The fact that sometime during our history some may have committed those crimes is by no stretch of the imagination--or our conscience--a justification for torture in the 21st century in the United States of America.
Tasering to control a violent criminal---something many people object to, also---is similarly irrelevant to the discussion of torture.
No, don't" let's move on." We didn't move on with "whippings" and lynchings. We put a stop to them and enforced the laws and the rules of a civilized society and nation.
Silhouette
· 7 months ago
Yes Tony. First you have to really get to the bottom of what Al Qaida is before you can start using a war against "them" as justification for torture. Or maybe you're one of the few left who believe and put your whole heart behind the innocence of "a string of seemingly coordinated bombings" that fell in Bagdhad the day before Obama "secretly" landed there this month.
If Al Qaida was an organization truly hellbent on driving the US from Iraq, why would they "send a message" of the need to keep troops there the day before Obama "secretly" landed there? This just after Cheney's mantra that we needed to keep troops there.
Is it really so hard to do the math? If you take this seed backwards in time to 911, you can see that there may not only not be one single justification for torture, but there may also be a need for prosecution.
ChrisWWW
· 7 months ago
Tony, Do you then agree than Lynndie England and her compatriots should be released and cleared of all wrong doing?
futzinfarb
· 7 months ago
"Is the safety of our society more important than our moral sensitivity?"
By every measure, it is now clear that a policy of torture has made us less safe, certainly in the long term. Even those who are arguing with the critics of torture policies (see, e.g., Porter Goss's WaPo editorial), even those are telling us that the drip, drip, drip revelations of torture are reducing our long-term national security. Their portfolio was national security and they developed and implemented horribly flawed policies that through the context of processes in a democratic and free society whose principles and security they were sworn to uphold, they point out that our national security is being compromised. It is as unconscionable as if they had willfully ignored information that allowed a terrorist attack. They should have been at least sophisticated enough, at least thoughtful enough to think this through, to project what the consequences of their policies would be. That is what we entrusted to them and that is how they failed us.
That is, the torture policy makers, with nothing left to protect themselves, in desperation, are answering your question: our moral sensitivity WAS one of the important keys to the safety of our society and they slammed the door and threw away the key.
All Comments
Tasering to control a violent criminal---something many people object to, also---is similarly irrelevant to the discussion of torture.
No, don't" let's move on." We didn't move on with "whippings" and lynchings. We put a stop to them and enforced the laws and the rules of a civilized society and nation.
If Al Qaida was an organization truly hellbent on driving the US from Iraq, why would they "send a message" of the need to keep troops there the day before Obama "secretly" landed there? This just after Cheney's mantra that we needed to keep troops there.
Is it really so hard to do the math? If you take this seed backwards in time to 911, you can see that there may not only not be one single justification for torture, but there may also be a need for prosecution.
Do you then agree than Lynndie England and her compatriots should be released and cleared of all wrong doing?
By every measure, it is now clear that a policy of torture has made us less safe, certainly in the long term. Even those who are arguing with the critics of torture policies (see, e.g., Porter Goss's WaPo editorial), even those are telling us that the drip, drip, drip revelations of torture are reducing our long-term national security. Their portfolio was national security and they developed and implemented horribly flawed policies that through the context of processes in a democratic and free society whose principles and security they were sworn to uphold, they point out that our national security is being compromised. It is as unconscionable as if they had willfully ignored information that allowed a terrorist attack. They should have been at least sophisticated enough, at least thoughtful enough to think this through, to project what the consequences of their policies would be. That is what we entrusted to them and that is how they failed us.
That is, the torture policy makers, with nothing left to protect themselves, in desperation, are answering your question: our moral sensitivity WAS one of the important keys to the safety of our society and they slammed the door and threw away the key.