I comment I left for a pro-torture fella

[anysia]

Who thinks it's ok to torture people he doesn't 'give a flip about', and the few who are tortured (even though Jim doesn't consider waterboarding torture, but has yet to take up my suggestion he sit through a session of it) is better than the imagined attacks that have been averted.

Jim, would you stop paraphrasing 'StarTrek:Wrath Of Kahn' (the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one) to justify your pro-torture stance.

Wrong is wrong, no matter how you pretty it up. You can put frosting on dog poo and it won't suddenly become a birthday cake.

Comments

(frozen)

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're anti-torture? You must hate the Iraqi insurgents, then, who practice extreme and murderous torture routinely ...

... and be mildly, amusedly annoyed at America, which practices very mild torture.

Right?

(frozen) Funny, I don't think I said I loved Iraqis torturing people.

[anysia.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am anti-torture. Confessions under torture do not equate with good data. You can get anyone to say anything you want, regardless of the veracity of it, if you torture long enough.

And just because the 'bad guys' do it, is not an excuse for it to be done in the US. Americans should NOT be using terrorists as moral compasses.

And as I told Jim, I don't 'give a flip' about him, but I would protest long and loud should torture be applied to him. I don't care who is doing it, or what variety it is, it's wrong.

(frozen) Re: Funny, I don't think I said I loved Iraqis torturing people.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that we shouldn't be torturing prisoners.

I just wanted to make sure that readers didn't get the mnistake of assuming that "War on Terror + Torture = American Behavior."

Torture, as routine behavior, is a signature practice of the enemy, which we unfortunately are also doing a little.

The same way that if you mentioned "Abu Ghraib tortures" I'd make it clear that by far the worst and the most massive atrocities there were committed by Saddam's regime.

You wouldn't want to give the false impression that American behavior was the major human rights issue in this war, would you?

(frozen) but but but

[shadoutcarver.livejournal.com]

Jimmy did it worse!


did your mother REALLY buy that excuse?

Or did she teach it to you?

(frozen) Re: but but but

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I wasn't advancing it as an excuse. Merely as a way of putting things into perspective.

Look, if I talked about "World War II death camps," would you assume that I meant the American internment camps, in which we unconstitutionally put Japanese-Americans, some of whom died? And if I talked about World War II death camps and only mentioned Western Allied concentration camps, wouldn't that be kind of strange?

Ok, so why would it be any different for this war?

(frozen) Re: but but but

[shadoutcarver.livejournal.com]

because you are saying that we don't have to pay attention to what WE do

We don't have to worry about OUR conduct.

And yes, I hate torturers no matter where they come from or what their excuse. This includes Iraqui and all other nations on earth.

(frozen) Re: but but but

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

because you are saying that we don't have to pay attention to what WE do

I did? When did I say that?

What I said is that we need to see things in perspective. To give the enemy a free pass for routinely torturing prisoners to death, while expending all our moral outrage at our own military and intelligence forces, is not only perverse, but does nothing to reduce the overall level of torture. The reason why is that most of the torture, and the worst of the torture, being inflicted is by the Islamists: if we stopped all torture, even to the point of turning our prisoner detention camps into luxury hotels, the reduction in the total amount of torture being inflicted would be minimal.

(frozen) Methinks you are missing the point.

[anysia.livejournal.com]

while expending all our moral outrage at our own military and intelligence forces,

#1, not all the outrage is towards Americans doing this.

#2, we all should be morally outraged that Americans are torturing people, regardless of the methods being used, just as the 'enemy' is.

We're supposed to be better than that.

(frozen) Re: Methinks you are missing the point.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I am irritated that we are engaging in even fairly mild torture of enemies taken captive. This is despite the fact that these captives have no rights, not even the right to life, under the Laws of War (having been captured fighting out of uniform and for no recognized army). We have magnamaniously chosen to let them live, and so we should treat them properly as prisoners, which means no torture.

I am saddened that America, a country I love and which has usually fought its wars with reasonable humanity toward those who actually survived to become POW's (you are aware, I trust, that it is far from automatic to do so under batlefield conditions?), is being cruel in this instance. I hope that we stop doing this.

Outrage? Sorry, that got used up on 9-11-2001, when the enemy interned hundreds of civilians and then murdered their civilian internees by smacking them into other civilian structures, killing thousands more civilians. If I had any left, it was expended when we found warehouses piled full of murdered dissidents left behind by Saddam's regime, in 2003.

To dignify any sympathy toward captured Terrorists, after that, with the name "outrage" is to trivialize the lives of the Terrorists' victims. I am no more "outraged" by thir mistreatment than I am when I read, in history books, that the liberating Allied forces often massacred SS personnel captured manning the Nazi concentration camps.

I am outraged by the murder of the mountain gorillas, who IMO have more right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than do Islamist Terrorists. Indeed, to mention the two in conjunction is an insult -- to the mountain gorillas.

(frozen) Re: Methinks you are missing the point.

[anysia.livejournal.com]

I was horrified, and scared spitless for friends in the WTC, and the Pentagon, not outraged, 9/11. And I wanted the ones who were responsible dragged out into the open, or hammered into non-existence.

To dignify any sympathy toward captured Terrorists,

SUSPECTED terrorists, and some of the people sold out by their neighbors for $20K. And no matter how much they protest their innocence under 'enhanced interrogation methods' aka torture, they are not believed until they want the torture to stop and just parrot whatever their interrogators want them to say. Rather like POWs in Korea, or Japan, or the kidnapped people held by Islamic Fanatics.

How would you like to be just 'suspected' of a crime, or have a neighbor dob you in for $20k on something you didn't do, and no matter what you said, you would not believed, unless you parroted what your interrogator/torturer wanted you to?