2006-09-22
Torture By Any Other Name
"Great, we won't be doing biological experiments on the detainees anymore. Since cruel and inhuman treatment's definition is not spelled out, this leaves us exactly where we were before. The president can order waterboarding, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, physical abuse, etc., etc. It's all cool as long as no one is getting raped or mutilated. Are we not merciful?"
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I've read the best advocacies by people with whom I usually agree on such matters, including Ann Coulter and Tom Sowell, with an open mind to supporting torture against an enemy that I equate with the confederacy, the night riders / KKK who ended reconstruction and kept Jim Crow alive for 80 years or so, the nazis, etc. My view remains: there is only one possible position that the good guys can take here: zero torturing. No "clarifying language" about what torturing is permitted, as Bush requests, but rather: no torturing.
I say this in light of knowing that wars against the confederates, nazis, Japanese Imperialists -- absolute monsters all -- were fought and won by "good guys" who practiced even more torturing than today's US forces fighting the islamic crusade. Civilization can only procede in one direction, and in the case of torturing and civilian destruction during war, that direction is towards zero.
On Bill Mahr some repo woman is doing a terrible job justifying torture. She's a proclaimed christian, yet she promotes torturing. This is a terrible position for the pro-democracy crowd, to advocate torture as "less bad than what the enemy does."
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