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Thinking About Torture
Townhall.com ^ | December 12, 2014 | Paul Greenberg

Posted on 12/12/2014 7:47:39 AM PST by Kaslin

For a long time I resisted the word "torture" when discussing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used against high-value captives in the war on terror. I don't think I can do that anymore.

The report put out by Diane Feinstein and her fellow Democrats may be partisan, one-sided, tendentious and "full of crap," as Dick Cheney put it the other night on "Special Report with Bret Baier." But even the selective use and misuse of facts doesn't change their status as facts. What some of these detainees went through pretty obviously amounted to torture. You can call it "psychological torture" or something to that effect, but such qualifiers don't get you all that far.

It's true that torture is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Everyone can agree that hot pokers, the rack and the iron maiden qualify. But loud music, sleep deprivation and even waterboarding? At first, maybe not. But over time, yes. Torture can be a lot like poison: The dosage matters.

One of the great problems with the word "torture" is that it tolerates no ambiguity. It is a taboo word, like racism or incest. Once you call something torture, the conversation is supposed to end. It's a line no one may cross. As a result, if you think the enhanced interrogation techniques are necessary, or simply justified, you have to call them something else. Similarly, many sincere opponents of these techniques think that if they can simply call them "torture," their work is done.

The problem is that the issue isn't nearly so binary. Even John McCain -- a vocal opponent of any kind of torture -- has conceded that in some hypothetical nuclear ticking-time-bomb scenario, torture might be a necessary evil. His threshold might be very high, but the principle is there nonetheless. And nearly everyone understands the point: When a greater evil is looming in the imminent future, the lesser evil becomes more tolerable. This is why opponents of the interrogation program are obsessed with claiming that it never worked, at all.

And this suggests why the talking point about drone strikes has such power. Killing is worse than torture. Life in prison might be called torture for some people, and yet we consider the death penalty a more severe punishment. Most people would prefer to be waterboarded than killed. All sane and decent people would rather go through what Khalid Sheikh Mohammad went through than see their whole family slaughtered from 10,000 feet by a drone. And yet President Obama routinely sanctions drone strikes while piously outlawing the slapping of prisoners who might have information that would make such strikes less necessary -- and, more importantly, would prevent the loss of innocent American lives.

It's odd: Even though killing is a graver moral act, there's more flexibility to it. America killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in World War II, but few would call that murder because such actions as the firebombing of Dresden were deemed necessary to win the war.

In other words, we have the moral vocabulary to talk about kinds of killing -- from euthanasia and abortion to capital punishment, involuntary manslaughter and, of course, murder -- but we don't have a similar lexicon when it comes to kinds of torture.

When John McCain was brutally tortured -- far, far more severely than anything we've done to the 9/11 plotters -- it was done to elicit false confessions and other statements for purposes of propaganda. When we tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it was to get actionable intelligence on ongoing plots. It seems to me that's an important moral distinction. If I torture a fiend to find out where he left a child to suffocate or starve in some dungeon, that's a less evil act that torturing someone just to hear them renounce their god or country. Also, KSM was not some innocent subjected to torture to satisfy the grotesque desires of some sadists. He is an unlawful combatant responsible for murdering thousands of innocent Americans.

This may sound like nothing more than a rationalization. But that is to be expected when you try to reason through a morally fraught problem. If you believe torture is wrong no matter what, then any sentence that begins, "Yeah, but ..." will seem like so much bankrupt sophistry. The same goes for truly devout believers in nonviolence who think any and all killing is wrong.

I can respect that, because I think the taboo against torture is important and honorable, just like the taboos against killing. And just like the taboos against killing, sometimes the real world gets a veto.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: america; callawaambulance; cia; handwringing; ksm; loudmusic; repeatedsongs; torture; waterboarding
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A Townhall.com reader posted the following reply to another reader's reply of an editorial of the same topic, which I found was quite good

"There are some simple definitions for enhanced interrogation and torture that even left wing lunatics like you might be able to understand.

Enhanced interrogation makes prisoners uncomfortable and puts imaginary fears in their minds.

Torture is the infliction of pain that can lead to disfigurement and even death in some instances"

1 posted on 12/12/2014 7:47:39 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

2 posted on 12/12/2014 7:49:30 AM PST by Dallas59
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To: Kaslin
Was Momar Gaddafi tortured and abused before he was murdered with US assistance and approval?

"WE came, WE saw, HE DIED!" - Sec. of State Hillary Clinton

The silence is deafening.

3 posted on 12/12/2014 7:55:29 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Shickl-Gruber's Big Lie gave us Hussein's Un-Affordable Care act (HUAC).)
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To: Kaslin
Torture is the infliction of pain that can lead to disfigurement and even death in some instances"

I didn't add the picture where he is being cattle prodded, but that can be easily googled.

4 posted on 12/12/2014 8:12:19 AM PST by Slyfox (To put on the mind of George Washington read ALL of Deuteronomy 28, then read his Farewell Address)
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To: Kaslin
Terrorists deserve to be tortured. Whether or not you successfully obtain or even want to get intel from them as a result is irrelevant.

Terrorists have no Geneva Convention protections. All the "elites" seem to omit that fact in their insipid lamentations.

CIA - thank you.

5 posted on 12/12/2014 8:18:29 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Kaslin
Torture is the infliction of pain that can lead to disfigurement and even death in some instances.

Not an adequate definition. It references the permanent damage done, not the pain inflicted.

There are a number of methods that are indisputably torture that apparently cause little or no direct physical damage. Some of these involve electricity and probably various drugs. If you can have anesthetics to reduce pain, it seems reasonable drugs could be developed to amplify it.

6 posted on 12/12/2014 8:18:46 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: central_va

Whether a person has protection under a treaty is a legal question. It has little to do with the more profound moral issue of whether a certain way of treating him is right or wrong.


7 posted on 12/12/2014 8:20:49 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Thanks for morally condemning the CIA agent who tortured in YOUR NAME. Yes, in your name. LOL. Jerkface.


8 posted on 12/12/2014 8:23:32 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Bump.

9 posted on 12/12/2014 8:28:51 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Bump.

10 posted on 12/12/2014 8:31:39 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

Just curious.

Do you condemn the torture by Nazis or Commies?

If so, on what moral basis do you ground that condemnation?

Or is it simply that we’re the good guys, so anything we do is right? If so, what is your explanation for why we should be considered the good guys?

You apparently, as usual, also seem to be comprehension-challenged in reading. Where exactly did I condemn anybody?

I simply said that how we as a society decide to treat helpless people in our power says important things about us and our morality. Do you disagree?


11 posted on 12/12/2014 8:32:02 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Bump.

12 posted on 12/12/2014 8:34:53 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

BTTT


13 posted on 12/12/2014 8:38:46 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Sherman Logan
If so, on what moral basis do you ground that condemnation?

I will tell this; what you fail to grasp is captured soldiers HAVE GENEVA CONVENTION PROTECTIONS. So if a Nazi or a Commie tortures a captured soldier they are committing a war crime. A CIA agent torturing a terrorist has committed no crime at all. DO GET IT YET?

14 posted on 12/12/2014 8:38:56 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

So torture itself has no moral implications? Only who is torturing or being tortured?

Jews in concentration camps had no Geneva Convention protections. Neither did kulaks in Lybyanka Prison. Were there no moral questions involved because what they were doing was “legal,” which it was?

Where have I said anything about legalities? I’m talking morality, not legality. The two often coincide, but there is no law of nature requiring it.


15 posted on 12/12/2014 8:44:36 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

>I simply said that how we as a society decide to treat helpless people in our power says important things about us and our morality. Do you disagree?

Of course it is also possible to take the position that all violence is wrong, even self defense. There are all manner of different moral positions one can take. Many of them are extremely impractical in the real world.

A position that inflicting retribution on people in a manner commensurate to their actions is just fine with me. Terrorists do not abide by any of the rules of war or protections afforded by a civilized society to either soldiers or civilians. As such they should not be afforded any protections whatsoever. If you do not treat them in a manner which reflects their actions, you do nothing to deter those actions.

As for the ‘helpless people in our power’, the number of these scum who have been released from our custody (after being well treated) only to go onto resume fighting us in a barbaric fashion is quite large.

It’s nice to take the moral high ground. It’s just a question of how much of our blood do you want to sacrifice to hold it.


16 posted on 12/12/2014 8:45:39 AM PST by drbuzzard (All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.)
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To: Sherman Logan

So did the CIA agents that “tortured” KSM commit an immoral act? Yes or No.


17 posted on 12/12/2014 8:46:18 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Sherman Logan

This piece of human excrement knew exactly what he would get if caught.

18 posted on 12/12/2014 8:52:57 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: drbuzzard

This treatment obviously covers a spectrum.

Since terrorists do not abide by the rules of war, is it okay in your book to burn captured terrorists alive or crucify them? If not, why not? According to you, they should be afforded no protections whatsoever.

All I’ve tried to do is generate discussion of how we should decide to treat our captives. All we tend to get is bloviating from both sides.

One side says “torture doesn’t work and we should never, ever do it.” Generally, like pacifists, they don’t really mean this. They’re just taking the cost-free (or so they think) moral high ground.

Meanwhile the other side says there should be no limits whatsoever on what we do. And I don’t think most of you mean that either. Unless we want to get into boiling alive, crucifixion and impalement.

So for both sides there actually are lines, they just spout platitudes that there aren’t. So why can’t we talk about where we as a society decide we are going to draw those lines? Rather than pretending there are none.


19 posted on 12/12/2014 8:54:57 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan
Meanwhile the other side says there should be no limits whatsoever on what we do to captured terrorists

Fixed.

20 posted on 12/12/2014 8:57:57 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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