THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

Quote:

If killing one person,even a child,can save hundreds of lives,then it is worth it.

But, it's never a guarantee that it will save lives. Only a supposition that it will save lives. You're willing to kill on the theory that it will save lives. I think this is a terrible hubris.

Cycloptichorn

Quote:

If killing one person,even a child,can save hundreds of lives,then it is worth it.

But, it's never a guarantee that it will save lives. Only a supposition that it will save lives. You're willing to kill on the theory that it will save lives. I think this is a terrible hubris.

Cycloptichorn

Fear of Big Battle Panics Iraqi City

By Megan K. Stack and Louise Roug, LA Times Staff Writers
June 11, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Fears of an imminent offensive by the U.S. troops massed around the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi intensified Saturday, with residents pouring out of the city to escape what they describe as a mounting humanitarian crisis.

The image pieced together from interviews with tribal leaders and fleeing families in recent weeks is one of a desperate population of 400,000 people trapped in the crossfire between insurgents and U.S. forces. Food and medical supplies are running low, prices for gas have soared because of shortages and municipal services have ground to a stop.

U.S. and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the city by Saturday, residents and Iraqi officials said. Airstrikes on several residential areas picked up, and troops took to the streets with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Capt. Tahseen Dulaimi said.

U.S. military officials refused to confirm or deny reports that a Ramadi offensive was underway.

Thousands of families remain trapped in the city, those who have fled say. Many can't afford to leave or lack transportation, whereas other families have decided to wait for their children to finish final examinations at school before escaping.

"The situation is catastrophic. No services, no electricity, no water," said Sheik Fassal Gaood, the former governor of Al Anbar province, whose capital is Ramadi.

"People in Ramadi are caught between two plagues: the vicious, armed insurgents and the American and Iraqi troops."

Residents have been particularly unnerved by the recent arrival of 1,500 U.S. troops sent to reinforce the forces already stationed at the city. Street battles between troops and insurgents have been raging for months, but the troops' deployment left residents bracing for a mass offensive to take the town back from insurgents.

"It is becoming hell up there," said Mohammed Fahdawi, a 42-year-old contractor who packed up his four children and fled to Baghdad two weeks ago. "It is unbelievable: The Americans seem to have brought all of their troops to Ramadi."

Fear of Big Battle Panics Iraqi City

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Saturday, June 10, 2006

Zarqawi...
So 'Zarqawi' is finally dead. It was an interesting piece of news that greeted us yesterday morning (or was it the day before? I've lost track of time…). I didn't bother with the pictures and film they showed of him because I, personally, have been saturated with images of broken, bleeding bodies.

The reactions have been different. There's a general consensus amongst family and friends that he won't be missed, whoever he is. There is also doubt- who was he really? Did he even exist? Was he truly the huge terror the Americans made him out to be? When did he actually die? People swear he was dead back in 2003… The timing is extremely suspicious: just when people were getting really fed up with the useless Iraqi government, Zarqawi is killed and Maliki is hailed the victorious leader of the occupied world! (And no- Iraqis aren't celebrating in the streets- worries over electricity, water, death squads, tests, corpses and extremists in high places prevail right now.)

I've been listening to reactions- mostly from pro-war politicians and the naïveté they reveal is astounding. Maliki (the current Iraqi PM) was almost giddy as he made the news public (he had even gone the extra mile and shaved!). Do they really believe it will end the resistance against occupation? As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue- why is that SO difficult to understand? How is that concept a foreign one?

"A new day for Iraqis" is the current theme of the Iraqi puppet government and the Americans. Like it was "A New Day for Iraqis" on April 9, 2003 . And it was "A New Day for Iraqis" when they killed Oday and Qusay. Another "New Day for Iraqis" when they caught Saddam. More "New Day" when they drafted the constitution… I'm beginning to think it's like one of those questions they give you on IQ tests: If 'New' is equal to 'More' and 'Day' is equal to 'Suffering', what does "New Day for Iraqis" mean?

How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."

So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down… That's what we were promised, wasn't it? That sounds good to me. Now- who do they have to kill to stop the Ministry of Interior death squads, and trigger-happy foreign troops?


- posted by river @ 12:47 AM

...
I understand that we make decisions to wage war in order to save the lives of many.
Good!

Your labelling me a 'neville chamberlain' is a predictable response from right-wingers, but even more so, doesn't apply to my argument, because I'm not arguing that we sometimes don't need to go to war.
I did not label you a 'neville chamberlain'. I exemplified your supposition as a neville chamberlain come winston churchill supposition.

ican711nm wrote:

Your supposition has inevitably been subsequently replaced by the one that works as the murder rate has accelerated to a rate intolerable to the majority (e.g., Neville Chamberlain come Winston Churchill).

Rather, my argument is against torture, which is unneccessary and has never proven effective in providing useful information.
I cannot argue whether or not the information extracted under torture was never useful. After all, never is a very longtime. However, sometime ago in this forum I provided you several examples of information having been successfully extracted by the use of torture. One of those examples was revealed by John McCain telling about how the North Vietnamese got him to confess to stuff he didn't do. Was that useful to the North Vietnamese? I don't know!

It is also morally wrong, extremely morally wrong. The 'doomsday scenario' doesn't make it right, either, whether it is kids trapped underground or a potential nuclear bomb.
Is it wrong for any kind of torture? Is it wrong if drugs, fear, humiliation, fatigue, and other non-lethal, non-injurious, and non-disabling pain is administered? I claim that such torture as this is justified if it can and does save lives.

The fact is, the ends never justify the means. That's not idealism, it's a fact; if the means of our fight are not just, the ends cannot possibly be just.
What do you think constitutes a just means? I think a just means is one which actually achieves a just end (e.g., actually ends in a net saving of lives). A means is not rendered just merely because it is perceived not to be abhorent or is expected to achieve a just end. A means is rendered just by its actual achievement of a just end. In that respect then, the selection of a means is a probabilistic decision -- a gamble -- until it is actually verified just by actually producing a just end.

Also consider the consequences of a decision not to use an abhorent means. If that decision proves to cost lives, then the absence of that means -- itself a means, albeit negative, in its own right -- makes that decision unjust.

Individual 'scare stories' are pointless in this argument, because the situation just doesn't matter. It is wrong to torture and murder people in order to stop torture and murder!
It's wrong to murder people to stop them from murdering people Police worldwide, not just in the USA, do it several times a year. At minimum the police murder people (i.e., intentionally kill people) to prevent them from killing the police)

The Canadians apparently just broke up a major plot to bomb and terrorize their country. They didn't torture anyone, they didn't spy on people's phones, they just did old-fashioned investigative work; and it worked.
Neither you or I have any evidence about what the Canadians -- or the people who helped the Canadians -- actually did to get their information about the terrorist plans.

It belies all the claims that we need to abandon our principles and morals in order to fight terrorism around the world. Many people don't see us as any better than the terrorists, because we have abandoned the morals which make us different.
How many other people see us is irrelevant. How we see ourselves is what is relevant. In my opinion, saving lives is relevant; saving lives is good.

You guys, I feel, take 24 as if it was real. It sure seems Bill does.
24 is a fictional work that reflects what many other people think is moral. What those other people think about 24 is also irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Quote:

Baghdad Burning
...
Do they really believe it will end the resistance against occupation? As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue- why is that SO difficult to understand? How is that concept a foreign one?
...
- posted by river @ 12:47 AM

Everything was easy, except--------!

Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like a soap bubble' Winston worked it out. 'If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.

He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. CRIMESTOP, they called it in Newspeak.

Bill, the surgeon comparison is asinine, because surgery is an attempt to heal someone, whereas torture most certainly is not. It is a gamble at best, with no guarantees. One that you admit you couldn't do. But you do support torturers. Pretty telling of your morals.

Quote:

And therein lies the fundemental difference between an idealist and a realist. Less carnage= better. In your age-old classic example; the child must die.

Okay, realist. If you truly believe this, then have the balls to say that you would cap some child in the head because it might save people's lives. You would make that call, pull that trigger, kill that kid. This whole 'farming' out of torture or killing is a sign that you don't have the guts to do your own dirty work, but are morally approving of someone else doing the dirty work, which is f*cking pathetic.

Yes, I'd like to think I'd have the strength to kill that innocent child if I thought the situation warranted it

Sorry, Bill, but I get my panties in a bunch when people talk of approving torture. It isn't a matter of being unable to do it oneself, and therefore leaving it to the specialists; it is a matter of approving of something which is clearly and abjectly wrong.

I've never seen any evidence presented that torture has in any way been effective in garnering information that could save lives, and until I do, I will continue to condemn those that torture, and those that approve of others doing it in our name.

While I understand that you are trying to take a utilitarian point of view, this

Quote:

Yes, I'd like to think I'd have the strength to kill that innocent child if I thought the situation warranted it

Is wrong, no matter what the situation is. It isn't a question of utilitarianism, it is a question of morality. Getting others to do one's dirty work is nothing more than attempting to absolve yourself of the responsibility.

I can address my own examples; I wouldn't kill a child to save a village. I wouldn't torture someone to save a bunch of kids underground. I wouldn't torture someone to stop a nuke from going off. I don't live inside 24, yaknow? I won't do something that I believe is fundamentally evil, even if it is to 'save lives.' You can call me an idealist if you like, but the fact is that the ends do not justify the means, ever.

Cycloptichorn

By the way, if not actual ends (i.e., consequences), then what do you think is required for a means (i.e., method) to be justified?

I don't think that is his point at all.

Let's not forget exactly what we are talking about here:

Quote:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

Such actions, even if you have good intentions, are categorically wrong. There really isn't much room for discussion on this aspect of the issue; it is just that some of you feel that it's okay to do things which are wrong, in pursuit of a goal which you believe to be right. I completely disagree with this notion and feel that those who believe this is true, may want to ask themselves what would seperate us from those countries who act in this fashion, who we claim we are morally superior to - for example, the old USSR KGB, or Hussein himself? He was big on torture, yaknow, and I'm sure they felt it was in the pursuit of the same 'good' goal that you feel our torture would be used for - state security.

Cycloptichorn