A Policy for Torture: Responding to Christopher Hitchens
By TheSophist Posted in War — Comments (83) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The 59-year old chain-smoking auteur Christopher Hitchens has undergone waterboarding in order to experience it first hand. His conclusion? "Believe Me, It's Torture." That is the title of his article.
His conclusion is that we, the United States, should cease the practice of waterboarding. In all honesty, I can get behind that, but the reasoning that Mr. Hitchens uses to get to his conclusion strikes me as equal parts all-wet and civilized fantasy.
Hitchens first makes this statement:
I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
Thing is, it's one thing to invoke the name of Lincoln for rhetorical effect; it's another altogether to actually make sense.
Slavery is an either-or, black-or-white, Manichean deal: either human beings CAN be property, or they cannot. There is no such thing as "partial property" or "partial slavery". There are no degrees in slavery. It's like being pregnant -- no such thing as a little bit pregnant.
In contrast, "torture" is not a black-white, either-or proposition. If we put questioning over a nice steak dinner from Ruths Chris on one end, and the medieval rack & hot irons on the other end, there is a rather large range in between. Where you draw the line is a question of judgment, dispute, and cultural aesthetics.
Is shining a bright light in someone's face, standing over them, and yelling at them torture? Some might consider that abusive, painful, and the experience might cause them recurring nightmares about large men.
What about standing for hours on end? Certainly painful (after a while), boring, and psychologically humiliating.
Another difference: there is no cultural variation on what 'slavery' means. Every human culture from all around the world (and let's face it, we all practiced slavery at one point or another in our past) knew what "slave" meant, and what "free" meant. The Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Americans all agree on what being a slave meant.
With torture... not so much. Other cultures consider acts that we Americans would look upon with horror as sort of a normal, everyday, "what else did you expect" type of an affair. A bit of slapping up a suspect by the police? That's par for the course in some countries -- they certainly would not agree that slapping a murder suspect around a bit constitutes torture.
So let's set aside the cute rhetorics of Lincoln, shall we?
Let us move next to Mr. Hitchens' reasoning:
I passed one of the most dramatic evenings of my life listening to his cold but enraged denunciation of the adoption of waterboarding by the United States. The argument goes like this:
1. Waterboarding is a deliberate torture technique and has been prosecuted as such by our judicial arm when perpetrated by others.
2. If we allow it and justify it, we cannot complain if it is employed in the future by other regimes on captive U.S. citizens. It is a method of putting American prisoners in harm’s way.
3. It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. (Mr. Nance told me that he had heard of someone’s being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite. I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been “dunked” this far.) To put it briefly, even the C.I.A. sources for the Washington Post story on waterboarding conceded that the information they got out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “not all of it reliable.” Just put a pencil line under that last phrase, or commit it to memory.
4. It opens a door that cannot be closed. Once you have posed the notorious “ticking bomb” question, and once you assume that you are in the right, what will you not do? Waterboarding not getting results fast enough? The terrorist’s clock still ticking? Well, then, bring on the thumbscrews and the pincers and the electrodes and the rack.
As to #1, some evidence would be nice, since that's a fact-based argument about what our judicial system has done. But even granting it be true... is Mr. Hitchens suggesting that our war policy be dictated by our judicial system? I'm thinking not. So let's just assume #1 isn't that important to his argument.
As for #3, torture may yield inaccurate information. But that's a question of effectiveness, not of morality. Why don't we let the experts -- those men and women who are trained in interrogation, who have the unenviable job of getting information out of unwilling people -- decide what techniques to use, up to and including the rack & hot irons, unless we as a society can come up with a reason for ruling some things out of bounds.
That leaves #2 and #4.
#2 is a classic argument: if we do it, then they can do it to us. #4 is the slippery slope argument: if we allow X, then we must allow Y.
Neither is logical, of course. There is no reason why we couldn't waterboard people, then turn around and complain when it's done to Americans. Is it hypocritical? Perhaps. And when has consistency ruled international relations or the conduct of wars? There is also no reason why we couldn't allow X, but forbid Y -- it's done all the time. Alcohol, legal; pot, not legal. Two drinks then drive, legal; three drinks then drive, not legal.
But I have a suggestion that takes care of both #2 and #4.
Let it be the policy of the United States that we will use all interrogation and punishment methods used by our enemies.
Our default starting point will be limited to polite questioning, or whatever is authorized under various international standards/conventions, and rules of police departments and so forth. I don't even mind incorporating some of the protective schemes we normally reserve for legal residents: right to an attorney, etc.
However, the very minute your side does something to one of ours, we will apply the very same standard to your people, reserving the right to go up to that point and no more, without necessarily doing exactly what you've done.
Germans interrogate one of our people by blasting bad euro-techno for hours into their cell? Why, I suppose we are now freed to assault German POW's with the nonstop strains of Britney Spears and musical stylings of Li'l Wayne.
Al Qaeda cuts people's heads off? Well then, in comparison, waterboarding seems pretty darn tame. Removing your fingernails with pliers seems less drastic than sawing through your neck with a bowie knife. So we will go up to and including decapitation when dealing with Al Qaeda members.
Taliban decides whipping women for the sin of appearing in public without a male relative is fine and dandy? Well then, our forces will know that we can go up to whipping in our questioning.
In short, by adopting a reactive policy, backed up with a default that is extremely weighed against forceful interrogation, we can put multiculturalism to work for us, instead of against us.
There is no possibility of a slippery slope here -- if the opponent we're dealing with adheres scrupulously to the Geneva Conventions, then we adhere scrupulously to it. If our enemy is a bunch of death-cultists who like to cut off genitals, then we are freed up to do everything up to that point, including waterboarding, breaking bones, what-have-you.
The moral outrage of the Hitchenses and others really doesn't work if it's directed only at one side of a war, and that is what such a "mirror-mirror" policy points out.
Finally, Hitchens takes the position that our "waterboarding" is creating a virtual SERE school for terrorists, enabling them to resist our interrogation techniques. Hitchens quotes Malcolm Nance (who doesn't strike me as a bad guy -- in fact, a good guy, who doesn't like waterboarding, which is fine):
Torture advocates hide behind the argument that an open discussion about specific American interrogation techniques will aid the enemy. Yet, convicted Al Qaeda members and innocent captives who were released to their host nations have already debriefed the world through hundreds of interviews, movies and documentaries on exactly what methods they were subjected to and how they endured. Our own missteps have created a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda’s own virtual SERE school for terrorists.
It's an interesting objection, but one that really forces another question. Why, in heaven's name, are "convicted Al Qaeda members" being released to host nations in the first place? Why are we releasing folks that can become a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda's own SERE school for terrorists?
Under the "mirror-mirror" strategy, we will be releasing Al Qaeda terrorists in the same way they 'release' our people -- usually in parts.
By clearly communicating our desire to be civilized as the baseline, but willingness to Do Unto Them As They Do Unto Us, I believe we can have an intellectually coherent policy that is also philosophically and morally defensible.
-TS
And you are exactly right. Of all the chutzpah, for him to get all sanctimonious about our (very rare) waterboardings, compared to the barbarism routinely employed by the enemy. And he's not even an American.
Hitch, baby. Just STFU.
Impeach the 5 usurpers
He became a US citizen in April 2007.
"If all men were just, there would be no need of valor."
- Agesilaus
well, "just as American as you" is perhaps an invitation to a semantics game, which I think I'll pass on today.
Impeach the 5 usurpers
As you said, there would be no end to arguing semantic and cultural meanings of how "American" any citizen is. May
I was just trying to add that maybe being eligible to run as president as a natural born citizen makes a difference when a naturalized citizen cannot, but I don't mean to start us off on that tangent.
He doesn't exactly get sanctimonious "compared to" the enemy. From the same article:
When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.
He brings an argument against the position, but he doesn't ignore it or treat it with pious indifference.
I don't think I compared his chutzpah to that of, say, Harry Reid. It's nice that he gets some details in perspective, but IMO this
Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
is high-flying sanctimony and in general a crap burger.
Impeach the 5 usurpers
the waterboarding, compared to the enemy, not the sanctimony compared to the enemy. Although I would ask, is he taking the whip to the barbarians in a way that might be in perspective - i.e., 100 times as severely as he gets on us for waterboarding?
Impeach the 5 usurpers
There seems to be a logical disconnect here:
Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
And
When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay.
So, is there a difference between "torture" and "actual torture"? Is there a type that constitutes "non-actual torture"? Apparently, waterboarding falls into that category.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
So, are we talking "is" or "is"?
Impeach the 5 usurpers
Gotta love Billy Crystal (in the Princess Bride)
________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)
Definitely a top 20 movie EVER.
Impeach the 5 usurpers
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Liberals like Hitchens are being disingenuous with this issue. They argue the question of whether to draw the line on torture, but the real question is where to draw the line. We should have the argument about whether waterboarding is torture. (I am not convinced that it is.) Myself and the vast majority of Americans agree that we should not used torture (except for maybe very, very, very limited situations). This argument is about more than torture. It is about how we can define what is and isn't torture so we know what we can and cannot use. There is a reason laws can be ruled unconstitutionally vague. Currently the argument against waterboarding and similar techniques is vague. Hitchens does not shine any new light on this subject.
We shall do unto thee what thou has done unto others.
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
I recognize the fact that you're not going to get information by polite methods, and that winning a war requires doing things you'd never consider in peacetime. But I think we should stop short of barbarism, no matter what the enemy is doing. If the whole point of a war is to prevent the enemy from dictating our actions and to defend values that we feel are superior, why would we let the enemy's interrogation methods define our moral limits? There's a lot to be said about the notion that if we start sawing off heads we're no better than they are.
Where I draw the line is at permanent pain, disfigurement, or disability. Temporary pain, discomfort, humiliation, or fear are all valid techniques. Slapping around is ok, knocking out teeth isn't. Being tied in uncomfortable positions for hours is ok, breaking bones isn't. Lack of sleep, uncomfortable cold, uncomfortable heat, noisy fans, flat volleyballs are all ok. And I see nothing wrong at all with using someone's own cultural biases against him, like the "female invasion of space" technique, or smearing with menstrual blood. It's the ultimate celebration of diversity!
___________________________________________
"You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice" - Scott Adams (speaking through Dogbert)
and I would invite you to read my lengthy response below.
The point of my proposed policy is to shift the framework through which we view the work of our men and women with the thankless job of interrogating terrorists for actionable intelligence.
Not to justify sawing off of heads. :)
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
From Merriam-Webster online:
Torture (noun):
1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure
Interrogate (transitive verb):
1 : to question formally and systematically 2 : to give or send out a signal to (as a transponder) for triggering an appropriate response
emphasis mine.
My question all along in this debate, has been, what are we really talking about here? The left has screamed torture so much, we all knee-jerk in reaction to it. We run to defend or oppose such practice.
But, is torture the real issue? It is my opinion that the actual issue here is the use of interrogation methods, soft and hard. The left clouded the issue with a buzzword that fills the mind with images of horrific deeds, as to shift the discussion from the real topic. Remember, the left would like nothing more than to strip intelligence organizations down to levels of local law enforcement. Handcuff those in charge of protecting America with lawyers, legalese and constitutional rights.
Does America practice torture or interrogation on enemy combatants? I think that can't be answered without context. I emphasized the “sadistic pleasure” line from the torture definition above. I do not believe this is what American intelligence and military professionals practice. I do believe this is what terrorists groups engage in before killing captured soldiers and civilians. There has been only one incident I can think of, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers broke protocol. Those soldiers were punished.
Interrogations are necessary to extract information from the enemy. Interrogations should be conducted by trained professionals that have been taught to read people, to read pain levels and who have an understanding when the subject is near the breaking point. People trained in these methods should also know how to imply pain and discomfort, testing the subject’s limits.
Does America torture? No. Does America employ interrogation methods, soft and hard? Yes. Is there a difference been the harshest interrogation method and torture? Yes. Distinguishing between the two is what the discussions should be about. Is there a ceiling to interrogations, a line that should not be crossed? Personally, I leave that decision up to the trained professionals. If there is a subject resistant to certain methods, try something different, harder. Once we understand the nature and uses of both torture and interrogation, we might just be able to put and end to this debate. And let those trained to protect us get on with their jobs.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
in tolerating both levels of discomfort as well as different techniques. While wearing a hood might not bother you, it is terror to others. Same goes for loud noises, temperature changes, sleep deprivation etc. One set of rules cannot apply to everyone or all situations.
The water board is indeed very intense - but the problem with the water board from the interrogation side is that you will say or sign anything to end the ordeal, so it has never been a preferred or much used tool. The most effective interrogation tool is conversation and establishing a relationship (but these require time and skill).
As far as discomfort goes, try kneeling on a pencil on a hard wood or concrete floor for 30 minutes or so- that digs up memories I'd rather not recall.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
Actually, you have accidentally mentioned one of waterboarding's advantages over all other types of intense interrogation.
"the problem with the water board from the interrogation side is that you will say or sign anything to end the ordeal, so it has never been a preferred or much used tool."
Quite right, and our interrogators and leaders know that. Therefore, it is only used to extract necessary, immediate, and vital information from subjects. And those subjects will only be those who are almost assuredly in possession of the knowledge being sought.
So we are discussing a technique that is rarely used. And the technique itself has a built-in mechanism to encourage the subject to tell the truth. It's over quickly, and he is in good health afterwards. If he lies, he will expect to experience it again, soon, or (if we don't tell him otherwise) he might expect something even worse.
It would be inappropriate for almost all interrogations, and therefore it "has never been a preferred or much used tool."
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
I would clarify that slightly. He/she is in fine physical health. Their mental health may, or may not, be damaged and to varying degrees.
If a 120 second procedure drives him crazy, he wasn't very stable to begin with.
And, if you care, your priorities are askew.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
You'll forgive me, but that line of reasoning excuses anything at all.
I disagree, but I understand.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Here is the line of reasoning that excuses anything at all:
We are at war, a war we didn't start.
We may already kill an enemy combatant, legal or illegal, generally with impunity during battle.
Once captured, the legal combatants are protected by the Geneva Convention, but the illegal combatants were not, until the recent unfortunate decision by our sometimes confused Supreme Court.
If there is good reason to believe that any of these combatants have information that will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, lives that will otherwise be lost, the only ethical, moral, and conscionable course of action is to use any means whatsoever necessary to obtain that information before it expires. Geneva Convention or not.
That means, at that point, there are no rules beyond "don't do anything that will jeopardize the information." The logical conclusion is that there is no point in publicly discussing a priori rules that will be ignored in that situation, anyway.
My scenario opens some lines of questions. What about the lives of only tens of thousands of Americans? Thousands? Hundreds? Dozens? One loved one? I have no answer, other than to know that if it can be allowed at all, the person making the decision of how far to go may have much help when making it and no help afterwards.
Might an innocent person be harmed? Yes.
Might an unscrupulous person take advantage of the apparatus for his own purposes? Yes.
And then, who will make the decision? John McCain has said it should be the President's responsibility. Why bias the decision by telling the President that if you say "go" you'll be breaking our laws? A coward will say "no" and use the law as an excuse. A hero will say "go" and be vilified by the Left for saving hundreds, thousands, millions of lives by breaking the law, and he'll be impeached and tried by the opposition party if possible.
Whatever the situation, the very fact that this is all done publicly will do tremendous damage to our international image and our own psyche.
None of this should be in the public eye.
Don't believe me? Here Hitchens quotes Nance, then comments himself:
Torture advocates hide behind the argument that an open discussion about specific American interrogation techniques will aid the enemy. Yet, convicted Al Qaeda members and innocent captives who were released to their host nations have already debriefed the world through hundreds of interviews, movies and documentaries on exactly what methods they were subjected to and how they endured. Our own missteps have created a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda’s own virtual sere school for terrorists.
Which returns us to my starting point, about the distinction between training for something and training to resist it. One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.
My emphasis of Hitchens' words, which lead to the logical conclusion that the proper answer was "No comment."
To paraphrase the words of several of Hitchens' sources, "waterboarding isn't actual torture." Why do we want to characterize it as such?
We are at war. We need to act like it.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Anyone who does not distinguish between "torture" and "interrogation" is not making a useful contribution to the subject. Further, anyone who does not distinguish among the three objectives mentioned in the definition of "torture" has little to offer. There is little dispute that inflicting severe pain as punishment or for sadistic pleasure is not what we or our representatives should be about.
What the discussion should be limited to is the extent of coercion that should be permitted during the course of interrogation. The end points should be that both interrogation without any coercion and coercion severe enough to elicit obviously useless results (I'm thinking "If she floats, she's a witch, if she drowns, she's not.") are not effective.
Keeping in mind that pain tolerance varies widely (an eskimo might suffer greatly from prolonged exposure to conditions an arab might find slightly uncomfortable, and vice versa), it should be possible to define a wide range of conditions that would be persuasively coercive without "burning, crushing, or wounding." I suggest a glass of water after a prolonged fast as one end of the scale, and "waterboarding" as the other. (I'm really being quite humane here, as I was not repulsed by Jack Bauer's "kneecapping" under the citcumstances presented.)
At first pass, you make sense.
I like the idea of a "Golden Rule" of interrogation techniques.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
It is torture because it was effective? That seems to be what he was basing it on. "It wasn't fun and it me to talk, so it must be torture."
Did it cause Mr Hitchens any physical harm? Was he terrified? Did he immediately talk? That would be no, and yes, and yes, making waterboarding a humane, extremely effective, non-torture method of extracting information from terrorists and prisoners of war*.
*a category that none of the detainees at GitMo fall into, because they fought in a militia that refuses to follow the Geneva Convention, refusing to wear uniforms (and deliberately dressing as local civilians, targeting civilians and other targets specifically designated off limits by the GC, such as mosques).
Have you added to the population of the McCain 2008 minicity yet today?
I drive a car powered by hydrogen - C8H18 to be exact.
I would have liked to watch Hitchens being waterboarded. I am getting that tingle up my leg just thinking about it.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
So, your policy would permit us to torture an enemy state's civilian babies simply if they first do it to us?
Sorry. Our enemy's moral failure does not excuse or legitimate our own.
Just doing whatever is done to us is an abdication of our responsibility to figure out what is right and what is wrong based on positive moral considerations.
Does anyone disagree?
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Small is beautiful.
No, I agree with you completely.
"Well...they'll do it to us!" is not an argument at all. Because Nazis committed the atrocities they committed does not mean that the same atrocities ought be visited upon them.
There's always something to be said for justice -- but there's also a difference between justice and sheer retribution.
That said, the OP made a lot of fine points -- torture isn't analogous to slavery, because it's a judgment call. And reasonable people can come to different conclusions about things that are somewhere close to "the line."
I don't think a reasonable person could conclude that dipping somebody's hands in battery acid is not torture. I do, however, think a reasonable person could conclude that waterboarding is not torture.
And anybody who can't accept that -- even if they disagree with them -- is just childish.
So my policy would permit us to torture an enemy state's civilian babies if they first do it to us.
However, the key concept is "up to and including". So in my mind, we don't have to go to the extreme immediately. But certainly, someone who tortures civilian babies ought not to be complaining overmuch that we dunked his head in some buckets of water. Or that we pulled out some toenails. Or that we whipped him a bunch -- instead of, say, his 2-year old daughter.
We could, but we got morals, so we're not going all the way there. On the other hand, if you're one of Saddam's rape room guards... your complaints of "torture" are falling on deaf ears if our boys decide to take a rubber hose to you.
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
I understood your meaning. Good answer.
The only problem I have with your GROI is that it may not allow us to go far enough in some cases.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
If waterboarding were torture, then you wouldn't have a long laundry list of puffed up reporters volunteering for it. You don't see anyone lining up to get a hole drilled in their kneecap with a 3/4" paddle bit...
Perfectly true.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
The thing is: the bar for what we're not willing to do in order to have access to useful information that could, quite possibly, be the one thing standing between us and a flattened American city ought to be extremely high.
And that's the conundrum of this issue. We're simply having an argument about where exactly that bar ought to be -- not whether or not we should have a bar.
You're exactly right: slavery is an either/or thing....the severity of interrogation tactics, on the other hand, is a sliding scale. When, exactly, we cross the threshhold of engaging in torture is a matter of judgment.
Hitch's assertion that waterboarding is across that line is his judgment. And I don't even necessarily disagree with him. But I also think that reasonable people can find differently and still be reasonable people.
I enjoyed his piece -- and I appreciate his point of view. I just don't ultimately agree with it. I'd hope that he (and Sullivan, and all the other people of like mind) can be adult enough to accept that not everybody sees things their way.
Hitchens recycles the same old BS line we've heard so many times:
If we allow it [waterboarding] and justify it, we cannot complain if it is employed in the future by other regimes on captive U.S. citizens. It is a method of putting American prisoners in harm’s way.
When is there any evidence that foreign powers inclined to abuse American prisoners refrain from abusing them because the U.S. government sets a good example?
Even John McCain uses that line. Does he think the captors who tortured him needed some excuse of Americans mistreating prisoners?
I don't think we should torture unlawful combatants, though I recognize reasonable people disagree on where to draw such a fuzzy line. (Our standards for lawful combatants are much stricter, so the issue doesn't even come up.) This restriction on treatment of unlawful combatants is based on our own morality, sensibilities, and legitimately even on public relations.
We shouldn't delude ourselves however that being however nice (relatively) to those unlawful combatants will do anything to improve the treatment our guys get in captivity.
Heh. Here is what is sad:
I know people who more or less believe that.
"If Vanity Fair and Salon keep up their 'hard hitting' pieces on such things, it can change the world!"
And people wonder why I don't get along with my generation.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Don't you realize that the first thing people all around the world do when they decide what they're going to be bound by constraints of torture techniques to use on Americans, the very first thing they do is grab a copy of Vanity Fair to read the rules?
VF should know what they can do, because it's been torturing Americans for a long time now.
is going to leave a bruise :-)
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
How can you be so obtooth? Don't you realize that Ted Kennedy is dying of brain cancer? Now there's a man who never supported our policy, if I ever saw one.
I'll start my reaction lightly and rhetorically with a response to your deconstruction of the Lincoln allusion. In sum you get it completely wrong.
You incorrectly understand the comparison. Lincoln claimed that if slavery is not wrong, there is no right/wrong. Right and wrong is the issue of judgement. At that time people argued slavery wasn't wrong. "How can these slaves care for themselves? We are civilizing them. They can't make life decisions alone. Look at their primitive cultures..." Hitchens analogizes Lincoln's statement to the statement that if waterboarding is not torture, there is no distinction between torture/not torture. In this comparison distinguishing torture is like distinguishing right and wrong. Distinguishing slavery is like distinguishing what waterboarding is. You compare the distinction of slavery to the distinction of torture, completely mistunderstanding the analogy.
Moving on to your enumerated points:
#1: Basic links here and here. It is difficult to say if past rulings apply judicially to the current cases, probably not. However, the US govt has consistently, when forced to make a determination, found waterboarding to fall on the torture side of the delineating line. See EPU's blog before posting about lack of reference material in the future when it is so easy to find some yourself.
#2: This is not illogical. It is certainly not binding, and I doubt this line of reasoning will hold against Al-Qaeda, but Al-Qaeda is not now, and will not in the future, be our only enemy. Read this section about the treatment of WWII POWs by Nazi Germany and consider the massive difference in their treatment our American soldiers and Red Army soldiers. And how does one decry, with a shred of credibility, a behavior practiced by oneself? Is America's credibility so cheap to you?
#3: Agreed, this is not a moral argument so let us put it aside for now.
#4: This is largely irrelevant unless someone is arguing for truly unrestrained torture, we choose to draw a line and wherever the line is drawn there is always a slope from that point. I will accept some form of this argument as allowing waterboarding eliminates the inertial force of precedent and that can "get the ball rolling" so to say.
What cannot stand is your "solution", do unto others as they do unto you.
We are America. We are no mirror. We are a light. We have values. We have principles. We are better than Al Qaeda. We are better than Imperial Japan. We do not allow the worst of those who oppose us to define who we are.
"It's OK, they did it." The argument of a child. Upon mankind's banishment from Eden we were given the power to discern good and evil. You would throw it away. America is not a nation of children. We shall not base our policies on a child's "logic". We will not throw away God's gifts so off-handedly. If you find such a policy "morally defensible" I question that you have any conception of morality.
Now that's just an old Hush Puppie.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
So let me compliment you, sir, on being more than your average leftist. On to the substance!
As to the Lincoln analogy, I do, of course, disagree with your analysis:
You incorrectly understand the comparison. Lincoln claimed that if slavery is not wrong, there is no right/wrong. Right and wrong is the issue of judgement. At that time people argued slavery wasn't wrong. "How can these slaves care for themselves? We are civilizing them. They can't make life decisions alone. Look at their primitive cultures..." Hitchens analogizes Lincoln's statement to the statement that if waterboarding is not torture, there is no distinction between torture/not torture. In this comparison distinguishing torture is like distinguishing right and wrong. Distinguishing slavery is like distinguishing what waterboarding is. You compare the distinction of slavery to the distinction of torture, completely mistunderstanding the analogy.
It seems to me that if there is a misunderstanding going on here, it's on your side of the analysis. Take your quote, for instance -- there were indeed people who argued that slavery wasn't wrong. So what made it wrong? What faculty of judgment allowed Lincoln to so starkly, in such black-and-white terms, claim that slavery -- even of a willing slave by a kind and gentle master -- is wrong?
The plain fact of the matter is what made slavery wrong: slavery is possible only when human beings can be chattel property. As long as you can accept that premise, your moral system falls apart completely, and indeed, you can be said to have no morals whatsoever, and unable to say that anything is wrong.
Under your analysis, this "judgment" that allows a person to distinguish between slave/not-slave or torture/not-torture is some sort of mysterious aesthetic sense, similar to "taste" or "style" that allows individuals to look at something and make distinctions. If that is the premise of morals, then the distinction between slave/not-slave is the same as the distinction between torture/not-torture with is the same as the distinction between good music/bad music -- that is to say, there is no distinction possible except by individual judgment.
But once again, you run squarely into the plain logic of the matter: Slave vs. Not-Slave is a dichotomy. Torture vs. Interrogation is not. Merely claiming that both cases require judgment to distinguish between the two doesn't make it so.
I require no judgment whatsoever to distinguish between pregnant and not-pregnant. That is a matter of scientific, biological fact. Similarly, the difference between slave (chattel property) and not-slave (human being) is not one that requires much judgment at all. That is a matter of political fact.
Not so with torture, with proper limits of government, with merits of Rachmaninoff concertos relative to Mozart concertos, with well... with a hundred other topics that are exercises in line-drawing and judgment calls.
I understand perfectly Hitchens' use of the analogy -- he sought to borrow power from Lincoln's apt use in order to justify his inapt usage. But that doesn't make his argument any stronger.
On to the reasonings --
As to #1, I thank you for the links. They are interesting from a historical perspective. But as I've said, and I don't see a disagreement from you, I don't believe Hitchens relies in any real way on the legal angle, so we may move on past.
As to #2, you write:
This is not illogical. It is certainly not binding, and I doubt this line of reasoning will hold against Al-Qaeda, but Al-Qaeda is not now, and will not in the future, be our only enemy. Read this section about the treatment of WWII POWs by Nazi Germany and consider the massive difference in their treatment our American soldiers and Red Army soldiers. And how does one decry, with a shred of credibility, a behavior practiced by oneself? Is America's credibility so cheap to you?
In re-reading what you wrote, I'm not entirely sure whether you're agreeing with me or disagreeing. The irhabis are not our only enemy, and the future holds many other enemies as well, I'm sure. Your example of Nazi treatment is interesting. And you say that we cannot decry a behavior practiced by ourselves, and talk about America's credibility.
Here's my take on it.
Even under my policy, the Nazi treatment of American POW's would be more humane. The baseline, again, is solicitousness and gentleness. And we communicate it as such to the whole world. As long as our POW's are treated humanely, so will yours be. We will start off treating your people humanely, since that is our "default" mode. But cut off a head, chop off a few limbs, and we start getting medieval on you and yours.
I don't see why we cannot decry a behavior we are forced into practicing by the enemy's initiation. I see no inconsistency there. I see no inconsistency with, "We were forced to do XYZ because Germans did XYZ to our POW's -- we decry this inhumane and brutal treatment, and would like to return to treating German POW's kindly. We call on Germany to stop chopping off American heads."
Sounds a whole lot like Mutual Assured Destruction writ small, actually.
In fact, I see it as an enhancement to our credibility. It's all fine and good to talk as if our "moral authority" is some sort of a useful weapon, but when facing an enemy utterly without morals, without scruples, and with religious commandments to be deceitful, to be murderous, to be cruel and inhuman in order to win a holy war... I'm not convinced that such reticence is seen as "moral authority" or "mere stupidity" or "craven cowardice" by the irhabis.
Further, international relations, to me, bears remarkable resemblance to schoolyard politics. So I find your invocation of "argument of a child" illuminating. America is not a nation of children, perhaps, but all nations act like immature kids on the playground. Might does in fact make right; the bullies do in fact get away with it until the bigger, stronger kid decides to stir himself.
Do you really think that we are accorded respect, persuasive authority, and so-called 'soft power' because of our reticence to get down and dirty? Strange how Switzerland and Finland cannot seem to get Iran to disarm then. Our unwillingness to get down and dirty is directly responsible for the current war. Can you even imagine Al Qaeda flying three airplanes into buildings in Shanghai? I can't. Because even terrorists know (or believe) that immoral China would absolutely obliterate them, their families, their friends, and people who owe them money without so much as a "I beg your pardon."
Fact is, we have soft power because we have hard power: our military might. Fact is, our greatness is the result not because we have the Constitution, but because we have a powerful military. Trinidad and Tobago could adopt our Constitution tomorrow, with the entire Bill of Rights, and adopt a Private Property Rights Amendment to boot, and the world would yawn, because T&T has no navy.
We are America. We are no mirror. We are a light. We have values. We have principles. We are better than Al Qaeda. We are better than Imperial Japan. We do not allow the worst of those who oppose us to define who we are.
Well said, sir. And I only wish we lived in a world where such noble words and noble sentiments kept Daniel Pearl alive.
Fact is, my solution doesn't ignore that we are better than our enemies. Just because we are "allowed" to go cutting off genitals doesn't mean we are forced to do so. But when dealing with beasts-in-men's-skin that are the irhabi death-cultists, can we at least dispense with the faux outrage over so much less than full measure of pain that such beasts deserve? Can we at least congratulate the men and women of our military, of our secret services, of our interrogators that they did not descend to the level of terrorists by limiting themselves to waterboarding instead of going all the way to rape rooms and sawing-off-of-heads followed by live video streams on the Internet?
My proposed policy attacks not our enemies in Al Qaeda, but our enemies in our midst. When you set the bar as "anything other than polite conversation is torture" then you will see what our soldiers have to do to get vital information as vile criminal acts worthy of condemnation. But if you set the bar as "what they have done, so they may receive", then you will see that what our soldiers refrain from doing as noble acts of forbearance worthy of praise.
I would rather have the men and women who have the difficult task of interrogation be praised for forbearance than be condemned for torture.
How about you?
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
Back and forth about Hitchens' analogy is probably not worth the time but it's just odd we are having this disagreement, so forgive me.
Both statements are of this form:
If A is not B, then B and not B cannot be distinguished.
The purpose of both statements is to imply that any system of distinguishing B and not B that does not place A in the B category is so flawed as to be worthless, incapable of making any real distinction.
For Lincoln, A is slavery, and B is wrong. Any system of distinguishing right and wrong (morality system) that does not determine slavery to be wrong is so flawed it can not distinguish right and wrong as it purports to.
For Hitchens, A is waterboarding, and B is torture. Any system of distinguishing between torture and not-torture that does not determine waterboarding to be torture is so flawed it can not distinguish between torture and not-torture as it purports to.
It is a non sequitur to compare the determination of what slavery is to the determination of what torture is. The condition of slavery is determined easily and obviously just as the procedure of waterboarding is determined easily and obviously. The distinction of right and wrong often requires judgement just as the distinction between torture and not-torture often requires judgement. That is the analogy. To compare the determination of slavery and torture is to misunderstand the analogy, equating A and B rather than A to A and B to B.
For the rest, my response is in my original post. We are coming from two different places. I believe America to be a good nation. As such we should strive to determine what is right and wrong and do right, not wrong. Then we worry about how we are perceived. However, "The point of [your] proposed policy is to shift the framework through which we view the work of our men and women with the thankless job of interrogating terrorists." You find what is right and wrong to be secondary, and seek only to publicly define whatever is done by an American as right, without reference to a moral system.
You say this another way, "our greatness is the result not because we have the Constitution, but because we have a powerful military". I say something different, our might is the result of our powerful military, our greatness the result of the combination of this might with our Constitution. To allow our policies, the "applied Constitution", to be made by the worst among men is to sacrifice our greatness for a flawed promise of maintaining our might.
Finally, I appreciate the civility, it is very easy to lose this on the internet, for myself as well. My one annoyance, pet peeve perhaps, is your offhand characterization of me as a leftist. When you define someone like this you ultimately cheat yourself. Even if only in part you begin to debate not ideas, but an irrelevant notional "label"ist instead. It allows the easy dismissal of concepts via a dismissal of their imagined vessel. That kind of discussion obscures rather than illuminates.
I apologize for the offhand characterization of you as a leftist -- I admit it's a bad habit, but one that is hard to avoid after three years of Redstate. Your position does deserve a more sober response.
I think we can probably have the debate about formal logic some other time :) Suffice to say that I agree with your analysis of Hitchen's usage of the analogy -- I simply think it's an analogy that doesn't work because of the real substantive (as opposed to formal logical) differences between slavery and torture.
The real substance of the difference between us is perhaps not what you think.
For the rest, my response is in my original post. We are coming from two different places. I believe America to be a good nation. As such we should strive to determine what is right and wrong and do right, not wrong. Then we worry about how we are perceived. However, "The point of [your] proposed policy is to shift the framework through which we view the work of our men and women with the thankless job of interrogating terrorists." You find what is right and wrong to be secondary, and seek only to publicly define whatever is done by an American as right, without reference to a moral system.
I can, of course, see how my position could be interpreted as you have. It is, however, subtly incorrect.
My position really is that we should strive to determine what is right and wrong and do right. But that we should do so on our own terms, taking into account more important priorities -- such as victory and maintenance of our power, and recognizing that we are being merciful when we treat with kindness those that do not deserve it. The dispute over waterboarding is entirely negative towards us, and towards our interrogators. Rather than seeing that we are, in fact, exercising great restraint in not doing unto them as they have done unto us, the current dispute (which Hitchens' article continues) is to see us as evil, immoral torturers.
One of the oldest, most basic principles of justice is lex talionis: eye for an eye. As far back as the Code of Hammurabi, which in turn found its way into Biblical Hebraic law (see, e.g., Exodus 21:23-21:25), humans have codified the understanding that morality demanded punishment equal to the crime. And this principle is hardwired into human psychology, which is why even children in playgrounds understand it. "He did it to me first!" is a perfectly valid excuse, as a matter of principle.
Based on this most ancient, as well as this most basic and fundamental, of principles, I am positing that it is perfectly permissible, just, and right to do unto others as they have done unto us.
When we do not take an eye for an eye, that should be seen as mercy. THIS is the critical part of my proposal and my position. When we take a man who chopped off heads, raped little girls to torture their fathers, and other vile, inhuman acts, and we do not do the same to him, that needs to be understood as an act of charity and mercy.
We as a society, we as a people, we as a nation need to understand that when we merely waterboard someone who is part of a global network of death-cultists who engage in some of the vilest acts of cruelty to get information that may lead to eradicating that network, that we are exercising mercy and forbearance, not engaging in immoral acts ourselves. Morality, fairness, and justice permit us to go much further: lex talionis. We do not, because we are a good people, slow to anger, and unwilling to be cruel without a very good reason.
Otherwise, under the Hitchens' policy, or yours, the situation bears little resemblance to justice, or fairness, or morality. No matter what they do, we can only respond with polite conversation. No matter how vile they are, we are limited in our response. We become not merciful but weak.
All we are doing then is signaling to the world and to our enemies that we cannot to do that which is necessary to win, to punish, and to prevent because we are squeamish and don't want to get our dainty hands dirty. That, my friend, is an invitation to disaster. Like the one that happened on 9/11 when a private organization decided it can bring the mighty United States down, and have us obey their will, because America has feet of clay and a heart of wool.
They had clearly misunderstood our forbearance as weakness.
I too would prefer that we not have to waterboard, not have to do anything that offends our advanced ideals. It would be a great world to live in when we can just take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the beheader of Daniel Pearl an innocent reporter, and just have polite conversations with him to find out where all of his compatriots are hiding, what their plans are, and who the supporters are. That isn't the world we live in.
On the question of national greatness, I think we may be entering into the realm of philosophical debate that may turn out to be semantics in the end. Maybe your definition of "greatness" differs from mine. We can, perhaps, have a conversation about that some other time.
I hope this illuminates more clearly my position.
The important thing, at the end of the day, is for us, the American people, to understand that when we do not chop off their heads, when we do not whip them bloody, that we are exercising merciful forbearance. That we need to understand that waterboarding, whether we think well of it or ill of it, is a far cry from what those we waterboard routinely do to their captives.
We can decide as a people not to waterboard, but clearly understand that we could go much further than simply waterboarding them with all of the principles of fairness, justice, and morality on our side. And if we thus decide, we do so because we are merciful, kind-hearted, and good and would much prefer to be civilized even to our enemies.
But push us too far, and we will bring you the ancient justice that even children understand. Because our forbearance is born from mercy, not squeamishness and weakness.
-TS
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
I think you're right.
"Back and forth about Hitchens' analogy is probably not worth the time"
If you mean the quote from Lincoln, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” you couldn't be more right.
Lincoln's statement is a figure of speech. As such, there's no reason to believe it could stand up to rigorous scrutiny on logical grounds. It wasn't meant to be a statement of literal truth--it was a statement intended to evoke a state of mind, a vision of life that looks beyond literal reality into the moral humanity behind the reality.
By the same reasoning, a statement by Hitchens that uses the Lincoln statement as a "test for moral casuistry" (which it wasn't), both misuses Lincoln's words, and is itself not a truly logical argument but simply an attempt to convince us by using an eloquent and clever analogy, which he hopes we will take literally because of the appeal to the power of Lincoln's words. But Hitchens' statement makes no more literal sense than did Lincoln's.
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"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Aw, shucks. Thanks, GC.
A magnificent Independence Day to you and yours.
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Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
That's GC--Modest to a fault.
Don't break, ah say, DON'T BREAK that wing there son, wavin', ah say, WAVIN' it 'round y'all's back like that!
Time for something cold.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
I enjoy a bit of logical argumentation now and again...
For reference, the letter from which Lincoln's quote is taken. The immediate context, ""I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." Also a reference defining moral casuistry, in short "reasoning used to resolve moral problems by applying theoretical rules to particular instances".
From the letter and Lincoln's immediate context we see that this is a statement of Lincoln's long-held and long-considered principles which is intended to withstand logical scrutiny. The statement argues that any system of "theoretical rules" for morality, which when applied to the specific case of slavery finds it not-wrong ("if slavery is not wrong"), is so flawed it does not, in fact, determine right and wrong ("nothing is wrong"). I don't know if Hitchens use of pronouns is entirely apt, I would call this a test by application of moral casuistry. Lincoln knows by direct experience slavery is wrong, hence by applying moral casuistry to a theoretical moral system he is able to discard those which incorrectly determine slavery's moral state.
This is precisely what Hitchens does, he experiences waterboarding, and by direct determination finds it to be torture. This then provides a test by moral casuistry of any system of determining torture and not-torture. Both statements are firmly logical, Lincoln's words are not misused.
I will accept the challenge to argue logically. But first...
The "letter" was written to three men, one of which happened to be a distant relative of mine (I believe--I haven't traced the genealogy myself).
OK. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
The statement is evocative, but logically nonsense. You may substitute another noun for the word "slavery" and create “If ecstacy is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Or “If freedom is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” There is no logic to it. It is completely subjective. It is simply a statement that expresses a strong belief.
"Moral Casuistry"? In your link it states "Critics use the term pejoratively for the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions." So such a test is not universally acclaimed. I have no idea what was in Hitchens's mind, so I prefer to simply say that was my opinion, not something I'd defend any longer than this.
But likewise, it is only an opinion that waterboading fits into the category of "torture." John McCain joins him in that opinion, but as his own article states, there are plenty of others (some of whom have also experienced waterboarding) who disagree. My opinion is that if I were to write a definition of torture, it couldn't be used to describe waterboarding. If we devalue torture to "creating great anxiety," it could be called torture. But that isn't what most people mean by "torture."
For this reason, I find it interesting that the "waterboarding is torture" camp invariably uses the words interchangeably, seizing for itself the high moral ground. It's a good debating technique, but it isn't logical.
"This is precisely what Hitchens does, he experiences waterboarding, and by direct determination finds it to be torture. This then provides a test by moral casuistry of any system of determining torture and not-torture. Both statements are firmly logical, Lincoln's words are not misused."
Still, I insist, not logical but subjective "statements from authority." I don't buy it.
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This is largely content-free, just a bit of argumentation but for those of use who enjoy such twisted pleasures,
Reread the 2nd paragraph of my last post, I explain how Lincoln's statement is a test by moral casuistry. My previous "This and that" post also makes explicit the logical structure of the statement. Your argument by mad-libs is just silly, you can mad-lib any sentence and turn it into nonsense. Finally, read the entire entry on moral casuistry. It is a form of logical reasoning with its critics as well as its proponents, but it is certainly reasonable. It forms the basis of common law jurisprudence. In any case, it's effectiveness doesn't change the fact that it is the form of reasoning being used by Lincoln and Hitchens.
You may disagree with Hitchens' determination by direct experience about torture, that's fine. I'm just following up on your statement that Lincoln and Hitchens' statements were illogical, or merely expressions of strong sentiment. That is not true.
Mad-Lib logic?
I disagree with your contention that because Lincoln's and Hitchens's statements are of the form used by moral casuistry they are therefore logical. Do you claim that because some have labeled "moral casuistry" a form of logic that any statement in that format is therefore logical?
But I did like the "argument by mad-libs" characterization. Very good.
The point of the mad-lib logic isn't that it proves my statements about ecstasy or freedom, but that it doesn't prove either one. The altered statement is just a sentence of opinion. Lincoln's statement was also just a statement of his opinion. Real logic is self-actualizing. There is nothing logical in either statement that proves its merit.
"If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong."--Lincoln.
"If Niels Bohr is not wrong, then no one is wrong."--Einstein.
As it turned out, Bohr was not wrong, but many others, including Einstein, were wrong. The only real difference between the two sentences is that one is about metaphysics and the other is about physics. (And of course that Lincoln was right about slavery, while Einstein was wrong about Bohr. It's the second half of the statements I find fault with.)
Further, it is also true that if you need to state that moral casuistry "is a form of logical reasoning with its critics as well as its proponents, but it is certainly reasonable," then you have to admit that you're not arguing through logic, but through "reasonableness" masquerading as logic. Reasonableness isn't logical, it's subjective.
You earlier told us
If A is not B, then B and not B cannot be distinguished.
The purpose of both statements is to imply that any system of distinguishing B and not B that does not place A in the B category is so flawed as to be worthless, incapable of making any real distinction."
This is OK as far as it goes, but it is itself worthless as a means of anything more than delivering an opinion dressed as "truth." Do you recognize the inherently subjective nature of the words "flawed" and "worthless" and "real"?
Your statement can be rephrased:
"I say that any definition (a system of distinguishing) of a category of behavior called B must be written so as to include behavior A. If it doesn't, then I say the definition is worthless."
Unless "I" is God, the statements, however phrased, are pure opinion.
"If the union of two people of the same sex is not marriage, then nothing is marriage."
"If the union of two people of the same sex is marriage, then everything is marriage."
Agree with either statement or disagree with both; the expression of those opinions in that format does nothing to prove their validity, only the strong feelings behind them. They, and the other statements of the kind, are pure hyperbole.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
I think our friend needs some Was (not Was):
Bedtime for Jonny!
That clip would do well in the "evolution" threads. We have definitely evolved, and they show it right on the screen.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
so I took what was available. First I've seen the old "Night Tracks" graphics in many years.
After rephrasing my statement (and I agree that your rephrasing is accurate so we aren't misunderstanding each other) you write,
"Unless "I" is God, the statements, however phrased, are pure opinion."
I reject this notion as I believe there is right and wrong, red and blue, up and down and so forth irrespective of our often mistaken judgements on such matters. In the purely relative world you propose you are correct that any statement made is opinion, because all truth is relative. Further discussion would seem to me to devolve too far into philosophy. So, given our different paradigms I can agree to disagree with you, heh. Anyway, I enjoyed the logical back and forth even it was for nothing but it's own sake.
I would also let it drop, but I want to make clear that I have no intention to claim moral relativism.
I also believe that there is right and wrong; what I say is that when the issue is not so clear-cut, man can only aspire to know which is which .
Bill O'Reilly is taking your position on 25-year minimum sentences for child sexual assault. For him, he is right and if you disagree you're wrong. And he has a strong case.
But there are good arguments against his position, too, which he would dismiss as simply "wrong."
A similar situation exists with the death penalty controversy.
The kicker is in the definitions within the laws and the unintended consequences attached as well. There is no right or wrong in this case, just differences of opinion as to what is most important.
Truth is not relative, but our ability to recognize it is variable.
The very fact that I disagree with the statement made by Hitchens is proof that it was opinion.
He opines that waterboarding is torture, I disagree. No matter how those ideas are expressed, they are pure opinion, absent a pre-existing, commonly accepted, definition of torture that includes waterboarding by some kind of 'reasonable' description.
(Inducing high anxiety for 120 seconds doesn't work, for me.)
Of course, the only definition that matters in this case is the one the public holds in its heart, or perhaps the one the eventual President holds in his.
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and still does. Why? Because he knows people that had gone thru it and lived to tell about it with no disfigurement and no mental pathologies.
That one is made to think, for a few seconds that they may drown is not akin to
electric shocks to genitals, fingers cut off, the rack, etc
none of which anyone volunteers for so they can write a column about it...
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Excellent reasoning, GC. One might compare waterboarding to being hit with a TASER. Both are extremely unpleasant for a short time, but many people have volunteered for each as guinea pigs, some for multiple times.
And both take the place of other techniques that are far more likely to be lethal or permanently disabling.
We wouldn't be using a technique on our own men in training if we truly believed it was torture. Not even General Patton would do that.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
..nicely presented, a rational, reasonable argument.
That being said this whole "no torture" thing from
liberalsprogressives is just so much nonsense. They don't object to "torture", they object to anything being done by this Republican administration in defense of the nation. All of this sensitivity would go away under a Democrat administration; of course under a Democrat administration affirmative defense of the nation will, initially, be significantly lower. I say initially because once the American deaths at home become large enough even the Democrats will be forced to take action --- but by then their range of options will be greatly restricted.John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.