Conservatives Start Speaking Out Against Torture

[catzmeow]

Andrew Sullivan lays it out in such a way that (hopefully), even the diehard partisans can get it:

Manzi asks the question. I approach this from the just war tradition in which war, however vile, is sometimes defensible against a greater evil. Torture, however, is never moral or defensible under any circumstances. Why? It has to do, I believe, with autonomy. An enemy soldier that you are battling in combat remains autonomous (and potentially dangerous) until the moment of capture or surrender. At that point, his autonomy ends, as he is in captivity, unable to cause you further harm. And the infliction of severe pain or violence on someone who is thereby defenseless carries a much deeper moral weight than a fair or even unfair fight.

We all know this intuitively. It is the difference between two boys duking it out on a playground and a gang of boys restraining one while another beats the crap out of him. Torture is a form of cowardice and a form of cruelty, which is inherently different than the sometimes necessary evil of just warfare. My best attempt at expaining the relationship between torture and freedom, and why torture can only endure in unfree societies, is from 2005:

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Why is this so difficult to understand that we have a couple of dozen threads attempting to justify this practice?

For the record: I'm not a liberal. I voted for W - TWICE. I'm not a pacifist. I work in a law enforcement field. So, spare me the prejudgements.

 

[Iriemon]

Andrew Sullivan lays it out in such a way that (hopefully), even the diehard partisans can get it:

Manzi asks the question. I approach this from the just war tradition in which war, however vile, is sometimes defensible against a greater evil. Torture, however, is never moral or defensible under any circumstances. Why? It has to do, I believe, with autonomy. An enemy soldier that you are battling in combat remains autonomous (and potentially dangerous) until the moment of capture or surrender. At that point, his autonomy ends, as he is in captivity, unable to cause you further harm. And the infliction of severe pain or violence on someone who is thereby defenseless carries a much deeper moral weight than a fair or even unfair fight.

We all know this intuitively. It is the difference between two boys duking it out on a playground and a gang of boys restraining one while another beats the crap out of him. Torture is a form of cowardice and a form of cruelty, which is inherently different than the sometimes necessary evil of just warfare. My best attempt at expaining the relationship between torture and freedom, and why torture can only endure in unfree societies, is from 2005:

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Why is this so difficult to understand that we have a couple of dozen threads attempting to justify this practice?

For the record: I'm not a liberal. I voted for W - TWICE. I'm not a pacifist. I work in a law enforcement field. So, spare me the prejudgements.

Interesting perspective. I'm not sure I agree with it as a primary basis for why torture should not be legitimized. But there is undeniably an element of cowardness of inflicting pain on someone who is incapable of resisting or defending. Kind of like beating a kid.

 

[catzmeow]

Kind of like beating a kid.

Or debating Willow.

 

[WillowTree]

Andrew Sullivan lays it out in such a way that (hopefully), even the diehard partisans can get it:

Manzi asks the question. I approach this from the just war tradition in which war, however vile, is sometimes defensible against a greater evil. Torture, however, is never moral or defensible under any circumstances. Why? It has to do, I believe, with autonomy. An enemy soldier that you are battling in combat remains autonomous (and potentially dangerous) until the moment of capture or surrender. At that point, his autonomy ends, as he is in captivity, unable to cause you further harm. And the infliction of severe pain or violence on someone who is thereby defenseless carries a much deeper moral weight than a fair or even unfair fight.

We all know this intuitively. It is the difference between two boys duking it out on a playground and a gang of boys restraining one while another beats the crap out of him. Torture is a form of cowardice and a form of cruelty, which is inherently different than the sometimes necessary evil of just warfare. My best attempt at expaining the relationship between torture and freedom, and why torture can only endure in unfree societies, is from 2005:

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Why is this so difficult to understand that we have a couple of dozen threads attempting to justify this practice?

For the record: I'm not a liberal. I voted for W - TWICE. I'm not a pacifist. I work in a law enforcement field. So, spare me the prejudgements.

I won't pre judge you,, but I can't understand how thousands of innocents lying around dead at the hands of terrorists is preferable to waterboarding. can you explain that? cause really this has nothing to do with war,, it's about protecting American cities and lives.. Now if you can explain why thousands of innocents dead is preferable to one waterboarding then I'm willing to listen.. which would be easier for you to stand and watch.. a 9-11 in which you know thousands will die horrible deaths, or a waterboarding in which you are certain the person will be terrified of death but in fact will live.

 

[Yurt]

this is such a naive look at torture. first off, torture is relatively subjective...what the US considers torture other countries do not. that alone makes your comment that this thread is in relation to the other torture threads utterly naive. further, the torture talked about in this thread seems more like torture just for the sake of torture, not like so-called "torturing" someone to get information to save lives.

 

[Xenophon]

When has the US recently tortured soldiers?

 

[catzmeow]

this is such a naive look at torture. first off, torture is relatively subjective...what the US considers torture other countries do not. that alone makes your comment that this thread is in relation to the other torture threads utterly naive. further, the torture talked about in this thread seems more like torture just for the sake of torture, not like so-called "torturing" someone to get information to save lives.

So, you think that the ends do, in fact, justify the means. At what point, then, do you draw the line, Yurt?

Would you be okay with lopping off the body parts of suspected terrorists? flaying their skin from their bodies? Burning them with a brand? Repeatedly electrocuting their genitals?

What acts are morally permissible in Yurt world if it keeps you from being scared of the big, bad terrorists?

 

[catzmeow]

When has the US recently tortured soldiers?

You can justify torturing non-military enemies?

 

[Xenophon]

When has the US recently tortured soldiers?

You can justify torturing non-military enemies?

They gave me the green light.

 

[catzmeow]

That's interesting, Xeno. You claim to speak as the appointed spokesperson for all of the victims of 9/11? Pretty arrogant claim.

 

[WillowTree]

Yep! Xenophon.. those people who died meant something they meant a lot.. how easily the left forgets!

 

[WillowTree]

Yep! I put forth a very rational question,, very rational,, still no answer.. there will never be an honest answer..

 

[Xenophon]

That's interesting, Xeno. You claim to speak as the appointed spokesperson for all of the victims of 9/11? Pretty arrogant claim.

You claim to be the spokesman for khalid sheikh mohammed.

Pretty disgusting.

 

[catzmeow]

I won't pre judge you,, but I can't understand how thousands of innocents lying around dead at the hands of terrorists is preferable to waterboarding. can you explain that?

If and when we begin to live in a country where our government can, and does, justify torturing individuals with the risky goal of preventing a terror attack, we wont' have to fear the terrorists, Willow. We'll need to fear our government.

Let me ask you...are you willing to risk torturing someone who knows NOTHING AT ALL, in hopes of preventing something that may never occur?

You want to operate on definitives, as if you can know, accurately, who has information, and who doesn't, and if you just torture the right people, you have a surefire way of preventing a horrible atrocity.

But it doesn't work like that.

You will never know if the information obtained through torture is accurate, or if the person being tortured just said whatever came to mind to make the pain stop.

You will never know if the next person you torture is innocent, withholding information, or has valid information.

You want black/white definitives, but life doesn't work like that. You justify torturing a thousand people to save a thousand people.

And, since we are now in that scenario, where our government's interrogators have already tortured HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of people, at what point does the torture itself become worse than the terror attack?

See, some of those people who have already been tortured ARE INNOCENTS. That's a fact. And, you are willing to ignore that fact out of your fear of another attack.

 

[catzmeow]

By the way, these people who have been imprisoned in hidden U.S. prisons because they are "persons of interest"...

• Have never received a trial.
• Have not been adjudicated guilty.
• Have not been given access to legal counsel.
• Have not been found guilty of ANYTHING.

They are SUSPECTS. Nothing more. And, yet, you would justify torturing them, repeatedly, over MONTHS or YEARS, in hopes that they might give you some kernel of information.

Exactly how is that moral, ethical, or humane?

 

[Coloradomtnman]

I won't pre judge you,, but I can't understand how thousands of innocents lying around dead at the hands of terrorists is preferable to waterboarding. can you explain that? cause really this has nothing to do with war,, it's about protecting American cities and lives.. Now if you can explain why thousands of innocents dead is preferable to one waterboarding then I'm willing to listen.. which would be easier for you to stand and watch.. a 9-11 in which you know thousands will die horrible deaths, or a waterboarding in which you are certain the person will be terrified of death but in fact will live.

It has to do with the some of the principles upon which the US was founded: justice, human rights and dignity, equality, and courage.

Waterboarding may not be the rack, or hot irons, or other more medieval ways of torture, but it is still torture.

If a terrorist destroys Denver with a WMD right now and my family and I are killed because a prisoner wasn't tortured for information which would have stopped the attack, then we weren't murdered and we didn't die in vain. We died to uphold the principles upon which the US was founded. We died because the US will not compromise its principles out of fear. If the US does compromise its principles to thwart terrorism, then the terrorists have won. If we torture people, then we are no better than those who have tortured: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Kim Jong-Il, and Saddam Hussein, et al.

 

[WillowTree]

but but but according to the reports we have gotten the waterboarding did result in a positive outcome, it supposedly saved a similar attack on LA. now can you tell me you would rather have seen LA attacked same as NYC? Be honest now..

 

[catzmeow]

but but but according to the reports we have gotten the waterboarding did result in a positive outcome, it supposedly saved a similar attack on LA. now can you tell me you would rather have seen LA attacked same as NYC? Be honest now..

I think you need to read a more balanced set of media outlets, Willow.

At least one CIA officer involved with SKM has stated, for the record, that we had the information already, WITHOUT THE USE OF TORTURE.

So, the torture, in this instance, was unnecessary.

The difference here is that you can almost never prevent a really determined and amoral adversary from attacking you. But, we CAN prevent our government from adopting amoral tactics and ethics. There is a difference between barbarians acting like barbarians, and a supposedly civilized nation becoming barbaric, and following the legacy of evil despots like Pol Pot and Hitler, all of whom used the same types of reasoning to justify their atrocities.

WE ARE NOT BARBARIANS. At least, we have not historically been.

Is that the kind of nation you are willing to allow us to become? Is that the shining city on a hill?

And, how do you justify torture in light of your religious beliefs?

 

[WillowTree]

but but but according to the reports we have gotten the waterboarding did result in a positive outcome, it supposedly saved a similar attack on LA. now can you tell me you would rather have seen LA attacked same as NYC? Be honest now..

I think you need to read a more balanced set of media outlets, Willow.

At least one CIA officer involved with SKM has stated, for the record, that we had the information already, WITHOUT THE USE OF TORTURE.

So, the torture, in this instance, was unnecessary.

The difference here is that you can almost never prevent a really determined and amoral adversary from attacking you. But, we CAN prevent our government from adopting amoral tactics and ethics. There is a difference between barbarians acting like barbarians, and a supposedly civilized nation becoming barbaric, and following the legacy of evil despots like Pol Pot and Hitler, all of whom used the same types of reasoning to justify their atrocities.

WE ARE NOT BARBARIANS. At least, we have not historically been.

Is that the kind of nation you are willing to allow us to become? Is that the shining city on a hill?

And, how do you justify torture in light of your religious beliefs?

what are my religious beliefs?

 

[Coloradomtnman]

but but but according to the reports we have gotten the waterboarding did result in a positive outcome, it supposedly saved a similar attack on LA. now can you tell me you would rather have seen LA attacked same as NYC? Be honest now..

Yes, because I value the principles of this nation over life. I served in the Marine Corps for 4 years. I risked my life to defend those principles. Remember the soldiers who died fighting for our freedom? They died upholding the Constitution. They didn't swear an oath to protect US citizens, they swore an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Not extending human rights, even to our prisoners, who may or may not have been plotting to attack us (we don't know since they haven't been tried), goes against habeus corpus.

We are supposed to be a beacon of morality, a nation of hope, the home of the brave, not the home of the brave, except when we're so scared of terrorist attacks that we'll compromise the very pillars upon which our nation was founded.

If terrorists blow up all of the United States becasue we didn't torture prisoners for information, then we'll still win, because we wouldn't let the terror they attempted to use sway us in upholding the Constitution. But if we stop every terrorist attack by torturing prisoners for information, then the terrorists have already won.