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I was doing my normal click-around-newssites activity, and found the following articles. Don't read them if you can't handle descriptions of torture; but if you can't, you had better be angry at the American government.
Who they are: the double standard that underlies our torture policies
A Deadly Interrogation: can the CIA legally kill a prisoner?
Last Exit to Baghdad: the first soldier memoirs
I myself am apalled. People argue that extreme measures are neccessary when there are lives are at stake, and that these methods are for the greater good. However, my view of torture, and indeed my view of most actions that have a debated moral aspect, is that unless you're willing to do it yourself, you have no right to condone it if someone else does it. As a demonstrative case, the fact that I am not a vegetarian: although I've never done it, I am willing to kill, slaughter, and cook an animal. I've never done it, and I don't really want to do it, but I am willing and able to do it. To me, this translates as follows: I am willing to take responsibility for the act of eating meat. I do not divorce myself from the source of what's on my plate, as is so easy to do in today's world of conveniently pre-packaged foods. Nor do I commit the hypocricy of allowing someone else to do on my behalf what I would consider personally rupugnant.
So you had damn well better not approve of the use of torture unless you're willing to personally hold the knife, unless you can look into the eyes of another human being and see their pain and fear reflected there, unless you are willing to tear from them their dignity, their self respect, and their very humanity. With your own hands.
I am not willing to do that. I am not able to do that. And thus I can not and will not agree to have my government do it for me, no matter who, no matter where, no matter the reason.
Who they are: the double standard that underlies our torture policies
A Deadly Interrogation: can the CIA legally kill a prisoner?
Last Exit to Baghdad: the first soldier memoirs
I myself am apalled. People argue that extreme measures are neccessary when there are lives are at stake, and that these methods are for the greater good. However, my view of torture, and indeed my view of most actions that have a debated moral aspect, is that unless you're willing to do it yourself, you have no right to condone it if someone else does it. As a demonstrative case, the fact that I am not a vegetarian: although I've never done it, I am willing to kill, slaughter, and cook an animal. I've never done it, and I don't really want to do it, but I am willing and able to do it. To me, this translates as follows: I am willing to take responsibility for the act of eating meat. I do not divorce myself from the source of what's on my plate, as is so easy to do in today's world of conveniently pre-packaged foods. Nor do I commit the hypocricy of allowing someone else to do on my behalf what I would consider personally rupugnant.
So you had damn well better not approve of the use of torture unless you're willing to personally hold the knife, unless you can look into the eyes of another human being and see their pain and fear reflected there, unless you are willing to tear from them their dignity, their self respect, and their very humanity. With your own hands.
I am not willing to do that. I am not able to do that. And thus I can not and will not agree to have my government do it for me, no matter who, no matter where, no matter the reason.
