Unfortunately, when you’re talking about a nation, what you’re willing to do to others, you’ll find more people are willing to do to you. A lot of the reason we ought not accept torture is that other countries will be more apt to torture our soldiers when the situation is reversed. I suppose we could shrug and say that’s the cost of war, but then you could expect fewer people to join the military, knowing that they stood a higher chance of being tortured if they were captured.

Besides, torture doesn’t really work. The memos that were released show that the only really good intel we got wasn’t from torture, it was from befriending the terrorist and gaining their trust. That’s when they start to turn over the information we need, when we can talk to them, not when we can yank out their fingernails.

I’ve agreed with almost everything on this blog for some time now, but I’m going to have to take exception with this. Yes, war is brutal, it is cruel, but (as SunTzu stated in The Art Of War) the moral high-ground is both a rallying point for the forces, but also for continued support of the citizenry. There are also questions regarding the validity of information gathered through torture. The question then becomes (even if we leave morals aside, and already state that torture is acceptable if the benefits outweigh the costs) is torture worth it? You make the case of a high ranking official with knowledge of an imminent attack. Even if I grant you this, that does still not excuse torture as a status quo. If only a select few individuals had been tortured, and they had indeed all been well known high ranking officers, this story would probably never broken, and it certainly wouldn’t spark the resentment it has.

That said, as an American, I take great pride in my country. I take pride in what I believe my country should stand for. I am ashamed at what has been done here in the name of American security. I would gladly kill a member of an opposing army that threatened America, but if captured, I would not torture them. It would not be out of any respect for them as an individual, but out of respect for the American ideal of individualism. When we made an agreement at Geneva, it may not have been legally binding (as extra-national treaties never are) but it spoke to the America that aspires to be that shining city on a hill. I realize that this last post of yours was a rant, and I hope that with the calm of introspection you’ll see that the what we’ve done are not the actions of the America that you believe in either.

I don’t think our enemies deserve our mercy at all. I do, however, think the benefit that can be had by acting, as a nation, in an ethically superior way — adhering to the rule of law and all that — far outweighs the cost.

If we don’t treat our enemies with mercy, why should we expect our enemies to treat our enlisted men and women with any? If the enemy starts torturing our service people, should we do the same? If we do it, should they sink to our level? The fact is, most of the world has agreed that these kinds of tactics are unethical and wrong and as signatories to the Geneva Convention, we ought to take the moral high ground and reject harsh interrogation, which doesn’t work anyhow in favor of things that both follow the GC and actually work.

@Cephus – While I agree that treating our enemies with mercy is ethical and correct, the presumption that our enemies ALREADY treat our enlisted personnel, or our civilian personnel, with mercy is a fallacy. As a denizen of the NYC area I can give you 2,740 instances where mercy was not shown to Americans by our enemies. Was Daniel Pearl treated mercifully? I’m not advocating matching their disgraceful tactics with our own, just America seems to have lost sight of the fact that they played dirty first. At least our enlisted personnel try to attack the enemies with guns and bombs, not the ones with briefcases on their way to work.

It’s a funny thing about peace and mercy and goodwill. They’re only effective if BOTH parties are in agreement about their virtues. It can’t be one-sided.

That being said, I think the moral high ground is the right way to go, just because I don’t think we should lower our standards and values to that of our more base enemies. But I can certainly echo the sentiments of Janus as well. If you had asked me soon after 9/11, when my kids were comforting classmates whose fathers never came home, I would have personally volunteered to waterboard any suspected terrorist myself. Things like that can change your perspective.

As for the effectiveness of torture, I think it’s debatable. You’re probably equally as likely to get false information as opposed to truth. But if you have a chance of getting intel that will save civilian lives, is it wrong to prevent a great evil by the use of immoral tactics? Interesting ethical question there.

I think I hear what you’re saying. The paradox is that we deny that the same arguments are valid on a personal level. Those who kill a fellow human being are judged as murderers, and “but they are my enemy” isn’t a useful defense in the court.

Actually now that I think about it, I suppose there are mitigating circumstances, in that a person is excused for acting in immediate self-defense when they believed their life was in imminent danger. You’d have real trouble justifying a “pre-emptive strike” however.

I really have trouble with the idea of “committing necessary evils to protect your citizens”. I admire that you had the honesty to state it clearly as what it is. The problem is, the idea can ultimately justify anything, it becomes impossible to uphold well-defined standards of justice, and it leads to a sloppiness of government where injustice can easily prevail.

For a well-functioning society, the rights of the individual must be justly preserved. Justice must always be diligently administered, even at the smallest levels. If the government is not able to take due care with the justice of the world’s insignificant citizens, is the government trustworthy on the largest matters? The Biblical principle is found in Luke 16:10, and Deuteronomy 24:17-18; 27:19.

The US government has incarcerated people, without a trial, who are apparently too dangerous to be released, and yet apparently not dangerous enough for it to be ably demonstrated in a fair trial. This situation demonstrates to the world that the foundational principles of justice have been eroded in America.

Whatever we may think about national defence, justice must be carried out with great diligence even down to the smallest individual.

I’ve thought about this more, and even though I am still against the Iraq war, and avoiding trials, if you’re willing to kill someone you should be willing to torture them if needed. I was reacting based on visceral emotions rather than logic morality.

I don’t consider what we did to them really torture. It nearly crossed the line I’ll give people against the enhanced interrogation techniques that much. But to compare our water boarding to japanese or germans watering boarding tactics codenamed the “WATER CURE” is utter moral relativist poppycock.

The WATER CURE:

“included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.”

Seriously… We got great information out of KSM watering boarding him a totally of five session of which water was only pured on him 87 times. That’s five sessions, 87 cups of water. Not 87 sessions.

Would I torture muslim fighters I captured on the battlefield like the Nazi’s or Japanese did to us during ww2? NO! I couldn’t bring myself to carry out a bataan death march ethier. I wouldn’t even go there when it comes to KSM et als that were involved in the 9/11 attacks. Which is what this is all based on. However, I’m of the educated opinon that KSM and others involved in the 9/11 plot were illegal combatants and therefore did not have a right to the laws under our constitution or the geneva convention. Nor do I consider what we did really torture. It’s right there on the line, but it is not torture. To experience real torture go watch a video of what the Jihadist do to people they catch regardless of how well we treat our prisoners. Now that is Torture. Infact, it’s sadism.

“the world that the foundational principles of justice have been eroded in Americ”.

Really?

Back during world war 2 soldiers found out of uniform were summary excuted. I’d say these jihadist were lucky they weren’t. Further more, we keept the NAZI-GERMANS in our custody and didn’t bring them to the nuremberg trials until after the war. The problem with your thinking is this you think of these jihadists as lawful combatants and of this whole situation as a criminal matter. I strongly disagree.

Edit: I meant “POURED” not “pured”.