Waterboarding

Ticomaya wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Tico wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, if waterboarding an individual can save the lives of thousands of innocents, it's justified, and I've not heard a compelling argument to sway me from that opinion.

Here's one: the ends never justify the means. Actions should be justifiable without relying on theoretical or possible results.

Cycloptichorn

We've had this discussion before, Cyclops. You could say I am a bit more utilitarian than you on this issue. In short, I believe that if "torturing" one person has the potential of saving millions of lives, I would do it. You would not.

It's important to note that the situation isn't what you describe. We didn't and don't torture people to stop, say, an imminent nuclear explosion. The 'millions of people' line is a false canard.

Would it be okay to torture someone to save one life? What if it would save someone's limb from being cut off? What if it would just keep them from having some emotional trauma? Why would it be okay in one instance, but not in another? What criteria do you use to draw the line?

Given: we never know what the eventual consequences of our actions will be. Before someone is waterboarded, we don't know if they will tell us something which will save lives or not. How can we morally justify inherently evil actions which might lead to some potential good somewhere down the line?

The answer is that it cannot be justified. No court or jury alive would accept the argument you are putting forward, and you know it. This is why the evidence was destroyed; most people agree that potential ends never justify actual means. And it isn't a question of utilitarianism, either; outside of Republican 24 wet-dreams, there's no evidence that torture provides good and actionable information. It's more that you don't have a problem with torturing people.

Cycloptichorn

I think cyclo once suggested he would not countenance torture even if his daughter's life was at stake. Perhaps, but somehow I doubt it.

The problem I tend to have with the opponents of waterboarding and torture is that they come at their position through a certain sense of moral superiority.

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The problem I tend to have with the opponents of waterboarding and torture is that they come at their position through a certain sense of moral superiority.

It could just be that opponents of torture have a certain sense of legal superiority. After all it IS against the law.

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I think cyclo once suggested he would not countenance torture even if his daughter's life was at stake. Perhaps, but somehow I doubt it.

You misunderstand, sir.

I might do it - when faced with emotional pressure, one's mores tend to break down quickly. I'm not a super-moral man who sits on a perch, as you say.

Understandable, however I do recall you arguing you would not.

But I would understand when I was tried and convicted for doing so afterwards. I wouldn't pretend that my personal situation was an excuse for immoral actions, and I would accept my punishment accordingly.

Perhaps, perhaps not. If the emotional pressure of your daughter's peril could break down your mores, perhaps the emotional pressure of your spending the rest of your life in jail might do so as well. Tough to say for certain.

It is entirely possible that an investigator, judge or jury of some type could decide that my situation provided extenuating circumstances, and not punish me, and I have no doubt that I would be grateful for that decision.

Doesn't this represent a flaw in your morality or your character? You did it because of understandable emotional pressures but you think it was, never-the-less, wrong. You claim that you would accept your punishment for a crime you acknowledged you committed. And yet if you are lucky enough to have people like Tico and I on your jury you would be grateful that our interpretation of the circumstances, and not yours ruled the day. All this despite the fact that you are now vehemently arguing agaisnt our interpretation. Seems messy morals to me.

That doesn't mean that I believe torture should be legal, or a policy, or a practice commonly used. I believe that I would be participating in an immoral act by engaging or sanctioning torture and it should be illegal.

But you would be grateful if Philistines like Tico and I were sitting in judgment of you. I appreciate that you are honest enough to admit that you would be grateful for getting off, but it is clear that you fail to see how this shreds your entire argument concerning morality.



Cycloptichorn

Doesn't this represent a flaw in your morality or your character? You did it because of understandable emotional pressures but you think it was, never-the-less, wrong. You claim that you would accept your punishment for a crime you acknowledged you committed. And yet if you are lucky enough to have people like Tico and I on your jury you would be grateful that our interpretation of the circumstances, and not yours ruled the day. All this despite the fact that you are now vehemently arguing agaisnt our interpretation. Seems messy morals to me.

In any case for those who believe water-boarding and torture can be justified, there isn't a magic number of lives saved that makes it OK.

The question tends to be is there reasonable certainty that the person being interrogated does possess the information needed to save one or a million innocent lives.

Clearly this is a tough question because we've gotten it wrong plenty of times when it comes to capital punishment.

The problem I tend to have with the opponents of waterboarding and torture is that they come at their position through a certain sense of moral superiority.

I am much more sympathetic to the argument that the State can never be trusted with the power to kill or torture its citizens rather than the use of capital punishment or torture is immoral.

If I knew with certainty that an individual had information that meant either life or death for a single individual, and they refused to provide that information, there would be no moral dilemma for me in employing whatever means necessary to secure that information. The innocent should never be sacrificed because of some pseudo moral construct.

But of course, the question is how certain can I be that I am not inflicting pain or death upon an equally innocent individual?

This is where the issue moves from the high-handed claims of absolute morality to a murkier, more difficult equation.

Is the upside of saving thousands or millions so much greater than saving an individual that the degree of certainty required fluctuates?

What if the individual is your child or wife?

I think cyclo once suggested he would not countenance torture even if his daughter's life was at stake. Perhaps, but somehow I doubt it.

Again, I contend that those who insist upon an absolute ban of torture bear some measure of responsibility for the deaths of one, one thousand, or one million innocents when it is not employed and the saving information is never obtained.

To argue otherwise is to lay claim to some sanctimonious perch upon which you can sit and enjoy the false smugness of moral certitude.

There is a perception that moral choices can be easy and without anything but the positive consequences of heroics. I'm not sure that is the case.

You see a baby lying in the road. While the altruistic choice is obviously to rush out and save it, is this clearly the moral choice? Is self-sacrifice an axiomatic element of morality? What if by rushing out into the street you cause a car to swerve and hit the baby? Are you morally sound despite the death of the baby? What if you rush out into the street and are hit by a car and killed? Assuming the actions that lead to your death also lead to saving the child, is the impact of your death on numerous other innocents immaterial?

In a case like this we don't have a lot of time to contemplate the morality of the issue and we tend to act out of instinctual altruism (we rush in) or instinctual fear (we hold back), but in the case of employing torture, we have the time to reason with the circumstances.

Unless you have rather extreme beliefs in relation to most of your fellow citizens, killing and torture cannot be inherently evil if they can ever be justified.

You have extra-ordinary beliefs if you are of a mind that given the ability to defend yourself, you should lay down your life before an attacker rather than harm or kill him. Most people, and the law, accept that in such a case it is not immoral, illegal or inherently evil to do harm, and even kill your attacker.

It's interesting and odd that some should consider a practice which falls short of death more reprehensible and less justifiable than killing. It is quite a good thing that many (if not most) of us find it repugnant to inflict pain, but that is a greater ill than inflicting death?

For far too many people this whole issue is primarily based on political passions: I hate Bush; Bush allows torture, I hate torture!

No less a Democrat than Bill Clinton has made a case for torture under the extreme circumstances Tico and I have described. Is he inherently evil?

Now to the true canards about the use of torture:

1) It doesn't work!

Nonsense. It is not an unfailing mechanism, but it can and does work. If your argument is all about morality, who cares whether or not it works? Gilding the Lily it seems.

2) If we use torture, our enemies will use torture.

Perhaps, if our enemies were civilized, democratic nations, and even then shouldn't we expect the majority of them to hold firm to the morals we have discarded?

The enemies we currently face have no use for the obscene Rules of War, and they will torture our people irrespective of whether or not we torture theirs.

Another attempt at a practical argument against torture (see #1) but it falls apart rather quickly.

I more than welcome debate on this issue from a perspective that is contrary to my own, but not that which rides on a pillow of sanctimonious superiority stuffed up my opponent's ass.

I have clearly stated my position that torture, including waterboarding, is never acceptable. I've invited others to do the same, but only you have stepped forward and stated your position, in this case that water boarding is not torture. I disagree since the US has defined it as torture for over a century, but I respect your opinion and applaud your willingness to state that. Many here avoid making that declaration.

I believe that if you approve of these techniques, you will torture thousands of mostly innocent people to get little of use, you will lose the cooperation of millions of people who would otherwise be sympathetic to your cause and you would provide propaganda material to our enemies that would allow them to recruit and become a bigger threat to us than they are today. That is the price you pay up front to keep torture in your arsenal against the very slim chance that torture could prevent a catastrophe. I believe we are paying that price today and that it has hurt our efforts against terrorism rather than help them.

I also disagree that those who disapprove of torture "accept some measure of a burden uniquely theirs". This is the logic of the bully and the criminal. "If you don't do as I say, it is your fault that I am bad!" Sorry, I disagree. The US bears no fault for 9/11. We have certainly pursued policies that were not favorable to certain groups or regions, but the crime of 9/11 is the full responsibility of those who planned and executed it. It wasn't the FBI's or CIA's fault, not local police, not airlines, just the terrorists. Likewise, any blame for future attacks fall upon those who commit them rather than those who call for humane treatment of prisoners.

parados wrote:

Quote:

The problem I tend to have with the opponents of waterboarding and torture is that they come at their position through a certain sense of moral superiority.

It could just be that opponents of torture have a certain sense of legal superiority. After all it IS against the law.

Could be, but we all know that's not the case.

The distinction being parsed is as to waterboarding as opposed to torture. Do you have any citations to laws proscribing the specific CIA "enhanced interrogation technique" of waterboarding, parados?

Or were you just addressing the "torture" portion of Finn's comment?

So tico are you claiming that the distinction offered between "torture" and "enhanced interogation techniques" is valid? Sopprt that argument with some sort of fact please.

Sounds like a pink pistol to me. Cute, but ultimately it does the same thing.

T
K
O

Ticomaya wrote:

The distinction being parsed is as to waterboarding as opposed to torture. Do you have any citations to laws proscribing the specific CIA "enhanced interrogation technique" of waterboarding, parados?

Or were you just addressing the "torture" portion of Finn's comment?

The US has court martialed it's own soldiers for water boarding as early as 1898. We convicted Japanese soldiers of it after WWII and there have even been cases of US law enforcement officials convicted for it. Here's a nice summary link. The US has for over 100 years considered waterboarding to be torture.

No, it isn't.

Cycloptichorn

Diest TKO wrote:

So tico are you claiming that the distinction offered between "torture" and "enhanced interogation techniques" is valid? Sopprt that argument with some sort of fact please.

Sounds like a pink pistol to me. Cute, but ultimately it does the same thing.

T
K
O

Straw man.

I am curious if the fear of immediate death isn't severe mental pain and suffering could anyone that supports water boarding tell me what they think would be severe mental pain and suffering as defined by the convention on torture?