The Moral Justification for Legalised and Institutionalised Torture

[HardJedi]

We have seen that there are likely to exist, in the real world, one-off emergency situations in which torture is, all things considered, the morally best action to perform. It may seem to follow that...

[HardJedi]

lol, i didn't figure anyone would read a post this long, at least not very many, and even fewer would have anythin to say about it. I just thought it needed to be here.

[yellowwing]

Do I need a Masters Degree to read this? :nerd:

[HardJedi]

LMAO! no, just some patience. heck, a smart winger like you should be able to get through it, if a dumb grunt like me can :marine:

[HardJedi]

i'm gonna bump this, cause I know its alot to read, but come on devil dogs, give it a shot and tell me what YOU think of it?

[LeonardLawrence]

HardJedi....

I would say by the length of the post it must be interesting.

I am still using my Rifleman-to-English dictionary to translate words....like theorist. :) At first I thought I had to make a choice.
THE or IST____then I realized it was a word that meant something.

[yellowwing]

Legalised and Institutionalised Torture would be a dangerous slide towards a police state.

[LeonardLawrence]

Oh...theorist.... I get it! :p Here goes:

The article doesn't really define torture. What happened at Abu-Ghraib was not torture. If it is, then we torture our American service people on a frequent basis when we send them to Ranger school, BUD-s/Seal Training and to S.E.R.E school. In this case is the training benefit compare to the immoral acts we are committing. Enough said on that. Beat me and hook me up to wires if you must..but I won't yield on it. It isn't torture, it was humiliating and immature and why did you take a picture of it inexcusable, but torture, no.

Torture is having your cranium removed from your neck for fanatical purposes and design in a way that would be deemed cruel by animal rights activists. That is beyond humiliation into a realm of the unthinkable. Torture is suffering from shrapnel wounds because you decided to take your child and go to the market, so the family can eat. Torture is having your life altered by an unseen device in the middle of a road that causes your Humvee to flip end over end. Torture is literally terrorizing your neighbors and countrymen because they have different beliefs.

With that said, and in conjunction with the other thread where I stated I WOULD in fact commit an act if it meant saving lives....I think it is morally reprehensible. The fact that we hold the moral high ground is a driving force why we can condemn acts of terror and torture. Once we go to that level, it in a twisted way, deep down, makes it alright for the other side to go further and in turn for us to go deeper into the darkness.

Some say forget the Geneva convention. I would ask how many Iraqi's would have surrendered during Gulf War 1 if they thought they were going to be treated worse than Saddam was treating them? I am sure it would have been much fewer. Likewise, if we follow a standard "NO TORTURE" policy, we are taking the stand that it is wrong to do, period. Once you justify it once, you will never be able to take it back. Just saying that you believe it can be justified on a nationalistic level gives it a connotation of moral degradation. We follow the rules on how to treat other humans....except when it could save a few hundred folks. It is morally degraded and there would be no recovery from that. Law is based on our sense of morality. If you make it legal in some instances, you make it equally moral.

State sponsored torture is state sponsored terror. Think of the incongruences between our country's stance on:

1. Freedom
2. Human Rights
3. International community building

and the effects it would have in Trade and business

If we send the message that we will do the right thing, except when it is inconvenient, then I think we are hopelessly lost as a nation.

Now, I don't live in a rosy world, where I think Johnny Jihadist is going to see what we are doing and stop using his tactics....because he is humiliated (that would be torture, no?).

I am a realist and scum will continue to be scum until it is wiped up. Period. Let's just not be part of that scum pile by compromising our fundamental belief structure, one ounce, for any situation at any time.

We need to use our resources of superior technology and intelligence systems and dedicated folks to work against these threats while providing support for those in the field to get the information ethically and righteously. Any other way, by torture, is just laziness.

Let's sit down and define torture as a nation. It is not a semi-naked dog pile or a leash on the neck. It is a real issue, but let's define it so that we know when to ignore the public outcry and when to take heed.

As for what should happen if someone (an individual) takes that route, here is my thought. The allegory of the raft, while amusing is not a true example of the question faced. Trust me, you put me on a Disney Cruiseship and lunch is five minutes late....I am thinking cannabilism. Whose kid am I going to eat today, roasted with an apple in their mouth and booties on their little paws....er, I mean hands. Thats just me. :cool:

The real issue is that we cannot turn our back on the situation. Torture is morally wrong and unjustifiable. If I committed the act then I, like Socrates, would be ready for my dose of the hemlock. I would do what I felt was right, but I wouldn't expect any reduction or state sponsorship of torture, whatever the outcome, right or incorrect.

[RVHall]

I am very pleased to see some thoughtful posts on the topic of torture, in contrast to the cute one-liners that dominated another thread on the topic. I appreciate the thought provoking commentary, much more eloquent than I can provide.

HardJedi led off with a lengthy post, judging from the footnotes an excerpt from a longer paper that would be interesting to read. Anything that lengthy is bound to contain some points that others might criticize. But I like to have a theoretical rationale for my own actions.

LeonardLawrence lays out his opposition to torture from a pragmatic viewpoint and that's a critical view as well. Yellowwing's simpler statement is to the point.

My opposition to torture stems from experiences in 1968. Here's one:
On July 4, 1968, Cpl. Ray Shawn volunteered to walk point on an operation, when someone else should have done that. They were ambushed, and Ray died both tragically and heroically. I was with another (ROKMC) company but the word spread quickly because Ray was everone's friend. A day or two later, when we all were looking for a fight to get even, my company killed and captured a few VC. Probably knowing my state of mind, I was left alone with a prisoner. He was mine for the taking. Like me, he was spitting mad, and no doubt he was my mortal enemy and might well torture me if the situation were reversed. That's where the rubber hits the road, the moment of truth, etc. When I looked into his eyes, cutting through my intense anger was the realization that this was another human. He may have been a real believer in the principles of Communism, but more likely he was a farm kid like me and he was taken from his village and indoctrinated. I did intimidate him a bit, I admit, but it just wasn't in me to harm a helpless POW.

All this talk is just talk until you are faced with the situation yourself, in the field. If I were a religious person, I would be thanking God that I didn't do anything wrong, because I'd be a basket case now. I would have committed an immoral act and dishonored Ray's memory.

At the time I hadn't even considered the practical or theoretical basis for opposing or condoning torture. That came later. Some call the enemy inhuman to justify what they say they would do. That's a very weak justification. It's all just talk until you see what kind of a human you really are, faced with that decision yourself when you are half crazed with anger, as we all are at times during war.

I hope the young ones reading this will never consider torturing a prisoner and will not thereby tarnish the proud history of the Marine Corps.

[jrhd97]

Torture is not a matter that the ordinary grunt should have to contemplate. They should just stick to the geneva convention and articles of war. Once the pow's are turned over, the intelligence people are the ones who need to decide if a certain prisoner has intel that is vital to saveing lives right now. On the whole torture is a no win, how do you decide if the guy is telling the truth?