You bring up some good points.? One that peaks my interst is the 'tourtue and killing' item.? Have you ever seen the movie 'A Few Good Men"?? Not that Hollywood is the real world, but there is a moment in that movie that just resonates with me.? When Jack Nicholson's character has his monologue on the witness stand where he declares that "you want me on that wall", I can't help put feel that I do want guys like that on the wall.? I believe there are just things that happen outside the pervue of the American public that NEED to happen to keep us safe.? Let me ask you guys this question, and apologize if this has been covered on the board in the past.? If we could save say 4,000 innocent lives by torturing one would-be terrorist, would you condone it even though it goes against established treaties?? I know I'll get lambasted here for my point of view, but I'd not only condone the action...I'd full out support it as long as it never becomes public knowledge.? I hope that government does everything within its power to keep our public and other nation's innocent lives safe.? This is just one of those issue where I pop up on the right hand side of the isle.
im glad you brought that up.
I will quote Dostoyevsky (i know, classy?
) , who basically summed up your paradox.
"
Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth?"
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov
As Slcpunk, i disagree, from my heart, on moral and ethical ground (legal is pointless here as we human write these laws).
But, on that specific matter, as we are not talking about a metaphorical situation as Dostoyevsky writes (eternal paradise, magical torturing of a baby). We are talking about the real word. With real issues and complex situations, where you must know, things aren't black or white.
Who are the guys you are torturing? Who says they are bad? Who judge their actions? And as bad as their actions might be, how do you know they are not just a truthful reaction to some other evil your country has done?
There are millions of parameters in the current issues, and unlike what the media in the media want to say, it's really not about fanatism, religion, evil, and good, it's about politics, freedom, humiliation, inustice and social situations. Things are really not understandable in 0 and 1's.
Then again, on torture, funny we're talking about that, i was at the premiere showing of
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (an HBO documentary about the insanity of american policies regarding the law and worldwide human rights) -
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/ghostsofabughraib/index.html -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912585/ -
It was part of a 2 day festival in paris on "politically engaged cinema", and we got to discuss with two specialist of Amnesty International, specialist on torture.
Torture has been used by many countries and still is today.It is used openly in "edgy" countries (hardcore ones, but also turkey and such "normal countries")
It is also used by classic "modern" countries such as France (no evidence) , and other EU countries (the netherlands ...)
it is used massively by the USA (with link that even go as far as Syria ! yes? the cia transferred people in Syria .... to disapeear ...)
The "French technique" developed during the algerian war is pretty famous and very trendy in south america in the 60/70s. The military people also of course went to classes in the USA to learn about many interesting interogation technique ... like the "brazilian" technique of standing on a box, hood on head, fingers attached to electric nodes .... if you remember the fancy pictures of abu ghraib ...
Anyway.
The United States of America have worked very hard in the past few years to find their way around the Geneva Convention and all Human Rights principles. These amazing texts, who originated from the horror of WWII, texts that the USA signed quickly because they knew it was a way to give protection to their soldiers across the world ... they are now destroying it.
The usa have tried to redefine torture, with memos, actual memos, passed along the military trying to redefine the - i admit vague - text who just say : do not torture, do not humiliate, just treat humanly.
I would be ashamed of my country. And ask for empeechment
Donald Rumself even hand wrote a little funny note at the bottom of one of these memos regarding the current limitation of 4 hours of being forced to be standing up "
i stand 8 to 10 hours a day, why can't they do the same ?" - i'd like to see you standing 8 hours with dogs barking at you, naked, electric node on your testicles, and your bones crushed ....
Anyway, abu Ghraib just shows one thing, how high level orders and policies go down and create horror. It's not about 4 or 5 crazy trailer park kids lost in iraq, it's about actual policies that come from the white house.
I'm not even discussing the usefulness of torture to get info ... look where your army is right now ... great job.
But your last sentence is interesting, because you are actually justifying what al-quaeda is doing. They are doing everything they can to achieve their goals (as obscure as they can be). The dead bodies in round zero are the tortured in aby ghraib and the caged human being in guantanamo.
They are the palestinians stuck in Gaza and the african kids suffering from years of wars funded and armed by rich nations. Every injustice in the world brings, and will bring a violent reaction, and so far we only have dealt with the violent reaction, injustice continues (do not tell me about the billions of dollars of aid please ...)
Peace
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