Tuesday, Nov 6, 2007
Because this is a video game site and supposed to be friendly and relaxing (insert Edna Krabapple-esque jaded laugh), I usually avoid talking politics. I don't hide the fact that I'm a staunch liberal (why should I, when I'm proud of it?), but I generally just avoid the topic altogether.
However, with all this recent to-do about what is and isn't torture, I have a very humble suggestion that should straighten it all out. At issue is whether nonlethal interrogation techniques like keeping someone awake for days at a time, stripping them naked and subjecting them to cold temperatures and water dousings, or making them feel as if they are drowning (so-called "waterboarding") should be considered "torture."
According to Dictionary.reference.com, the word torture includes the following: extreme anguish of body or mind; agony. I would suggest that the feeling that one is drowning, losing one's life, would cause extreme anguish of the mind, at the very least. If subjecting someone to such a process doesn't make one a torturer, it seems it at least satisfies another definition: terrorist. I know that if I was strapped down and made to feel as if I were drowning, I would be terrified.
In a conveniently nebulous "war on terror," should we be employing the same tactics the terrorists do? Should we find the most insanely fanatical extremists and match their inhumanity, or should we hold ourselves to a higher standard? If through "winning" the war on terror we become the same as our enemies, have we truly won?
President Bush has unflappable faith, though, that these interrogation methods are not torture. His reasoning seems to be based on the rather simple argument that his administration does not torture, therefore nothing they do can be considered such. Waterboarding can't be torture (despite it being previously prosecuted as a war crime by the US), since the US practices it. Mr. Bush's candidate for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, has refused to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture in his opinion. Many Democrats and some Republicans in the House and Senate, however, feel that these techniques are torture, even if they don't leave marks.
To resolve this apparent impasse in Washington, I have a simple suggestion for Mr. Bush: to prove that these techniques of interrogation aren't torture, he should voluntarily undergo them himself. If he can be kept standing in one place for over 40 hours, naked, bound, and doused in cold water in a freezing cell, then be forced to feel as if he is drowning--if he can do all this and keep a smile on his face, I know I'd be a lot more willing to believe his take on the subject.
Mr. Bush has it within his power to end all this debate and show us all just how harmless and dare I say... invigorating these techniques are. If Bush, of all people, was able to easily undergo these interrogation techniques and afterwards assert that they are not torture, his words would carry a lot more weight. Perhaps this way, too, we'd get some straight answers on the illegal wiretapping operation he's been running.
However, with all this recent to-do about what is and isn't torture, I have a very humble suggestion that should straighten it all out. At issue is whether nonlethal interrogation techniques like keeping someone awake for days at a time, stripping them naked and subjecting them to cold temperatures and water dousings, or making them feel as if they are drowning (so-called "waterboarding") should be considered "torture."
According to Dictionary.reference.com, the word torture includes the following: extreme anguish of body or mind; agony. I would suggest that the feeling that one is drowning, losing one's life, would cause extreme anguish of the mind, at the very least. If subjecting someone to such a process doesn't make one a torturer, it seems it at least satisfies another definition: terrorist. I know that if I was strapped down and made to feel as if I were drowning, I would be terrified.
In a conveniently nebulous "war on terror," should we be employing the same tactics the terrorists do? Should we find the most insanely fanatical extremists and match their inhumanity, or should we hold ourselves to a higher standard? If through "winning" the war on terror we become the same as our enemies, have we truly won?
President Bush has unflappable faith, though, that these interrogation methods are not torture. His reasoning seems to be based on the rather simple argument that his administration does not torture, therefore nothing they do can be considered such. Waterboarding can't be torture (despite it being previously prosecuted as a war crime by the US), since the US practices it. Mr. Bush's candidate for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, has refused to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture in his opinion. Many Democrats and some Republicans in the House and Senate, however, feel that these techniques are torture, even if they don't leave marks.
To resolve this apparent impasse in Washington, I have a simple suggestion for Mr. Bush: to prove that these techniques of interrogation aren't torture, he should voluntarily undergo them himself. If he can be kept standing in one place for over 40 hours, naked, bound, and doused in cold water in a freezing cell, then be forced to feel as if he is drowning--if he can do all this and keep a smile on his face, I know I'd be a lot more willing to believe his take on the subject.
Mr. Bush has it within his power to end all this debate and show us all just how harmless and dare I say... invigorating these techniques are. If Bush, of all people, was able to easily undergo these interrogation techniques and afterwards assert that they are not torture, his words would carry a lot more weight. Perhaps this way, too, we'd get some straight answers on the illegal wiretapping operation he's been running.
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Posted Nov 6, 2007 3:28 pm PT
Yeah, I don't understand how defending freedom equates to abusing humanity, either.
Posted Nov 6, 2007 7:27 pm PT
Bush won't undergo the torture, so we'd be better of impeaching him. People shouldn't have voted for him in the first place.
Posted Nov 6, 2007 11:44 pm PT
There are most definitely situations where torture is not only acceptable, but a necessary means to an end. That being said, how often is it used only when necessary? It's a slippery slope, and there is no easy, hard or fast answer like, "Yes, it is acceptable." or, "No, under no circumstances." There are many gray areas in the field of ethics, and torture is no exception. Therefore I cannot agree unilaterally, nor can I deny that you have many valid points that had me nodding my head. A thought provoker.
Posted Nov 7, 2007 4:56 am PT
Comparing waterboarding and the like to filming a man having his head sawed off is a poor analogy if you ask me. I'm sure Daniel Pearl would agree with me were he still around. If waterboarding and such can save lives (this is how we got Khalid Sheik Mohammed to spill his guts) then I'm all for it. They're goddamn lucky we don't do half the things they do, and there is a grand canyon-sized difference between the two.
Posted Nov 12, 2007 7:05 am PT
Boz, you're right that there are no black and white situations. Sometimes, though, there's very, very dark gray and very, very light gray. it isn't even the process that's the problem, it's the definition. Whether or not its used by the US, waterboarding IS torture, and nobody should try to deny that. At least, not without having gone through it themselves.
Shamus, the "they started it" argument doesn't cut it with me. Japan attacked us first in WWII, but that didn't make the US putting its citizens of Japanese descent into concentration camps any less disgusting. It isn't easy to deal with crazy on the level of Islamic terrorists without resorting to barbarism outselves, but taking the more difficult path is the only way to avoid degrading ourselves to their level.
Shamus, the "they started it" argument doesn't cut it with me. Japan attacked us first in WWII, but that didn't make the US putting its citizens of Japanese descent into concentration camps any less disgusting. It isn't easy to deal with crazy on the level of Islamic terrorists without resorting to barbarism outselves, but taking the more difficult path is the only way to avoid degrading ourselves to their level.
Posted Nov 12, 2007 7:57 am PT
We have taken the more difficult path. We aren't cutting people's heads off, we're using more civilized tactics on an enemy that believes it to be God's will that they kill all non-believers. Rationalizing with them to gain intelligence is a pipe dream.
I'm a fight fire with fire kind of guy, and if you've got a dude who knows something that may be able to save lives, that information needs to be gleaned. The thing that people are still struggling with is the fact that this is indeed a war, and ugly things are going to happen in war. The rules of the Geneva Convention only work if both sides abide by the rules, and I think terrorism has proven it's about as far from the Geneva Convention as possible -- and that's across all factions, from Palestinian terrorists strapping bombs on children and sending them into night clubs and eateries, to the televised decapitations of "infidels" by other terror cells. No, there is only one language this enemy speaks, and we have to speak it back, or we've already lost. Let's worry about ideals and morality once the world is a safer place. For now, the rules on warfare have gone out the window.
I'm a fight fire with fire kind of guy, and if you've got a dude who knows something that may be able to save lives, that information needs to be gleaned. The thing that people are still struggling with is the fact that this is indeed a war, and ugly things are going to happen in war. The rules of the Geneva Convention only work if both sides abide by the rules, and I think terrorism has proven it's about as far from the Geneva Convention as possible -- and that's across all factions, from Palestinian terrorists strapping bombs on children and sending them into night clubs and eateries, to the televised decapitations of "infidels" by other terror cells. No, there is only one language this enemy speaks, and we have to speak it back, or we've already lost. Let's worry about ideals and morality once the world is a safer place. For now, the rules on warfare have gone out the window.
Posted Nov 12, 2007 9:38 am PT
@Shifty_Pete: Is that an offer? Because if so, I'll just need to get a few drinks in my first. Hmm, my joke had a touch of irony, too.
Posted Nov 12, 2007 11:00 am PT
@Shame_usBlackley
Torture is almost never justified. It most certainly isn't in this case. The information "gleaned" from illegally detained "suspects" isn't a matter of life or death. The real world isn't an episode of 24, you can't just go brutalizing people left and right for scraps of "information" that should be taken with a grain of salt (people subjected to torture will, eventually, tell their torturer what they want to hear, even lie to end the physical/mental anguish). When was the last time a terrorist organization made a nuclear bomb threat in a major American city? The stakes are hardly ever high enough to justify the debasement of another human being.
Government officials who invoke national security to justify sinister, genuinely evil acts against people considered enemies of state (be it in the form of wiretaps, police searches without warrants, imprisonment without a fair trial, or torture) take us one step closer to becoming a military state. And yet the American people so willingly ceded their freedoms, without complaint (or, more accurately, the American Legislative Branch decided for them). To this day our current president has yet to be impeached. Madness.
Ben Franklin said it best: "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
Torture is almost never justified. It most certainly isn't in this case. The information "gleaned" from illegally detained "suspects" isn't a matter of life or death. The real world isn't an episode of 24, you can't just go brutalizing people left and right for scraps of "information" that should be taken with a grain of salt (people subjected to torture will, eventually, tell their torturer what they want to hear, even lie to end the physical/mental anguish). When was the last time a terrorist organization made a nuclear bomb threat in a major American city? The stakes are hardly ever high enough to justify the debasement of another human being.
Government officials who invoke national security to justify sinister, genuinely evil acts against people considered enemies of state (be it in the form of wiretaps, police searches without warrants, imprisonment without a fair trial, or torture) take us one step closer to becoming a military state. And yet the American people so willingly ceded their freedoms, without complaint (or, more accurately, the American Legislative Branch decided for them). To this day our current president has yet to be impeached. Madness.
Ben Franklin said it best: "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
Posted Nov 27, 2007 8:38 am PT
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