THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

None of what you just wrote speaks to the moral aspect of torture being wrong, which leads me to the conclusion that you have no cohesive argument justifying torture, and that you approve of people doing morally wrong acts in the name of a Just outcome.

Cycloptichorn

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

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

Quote:

Perhaps not surprisingly, some medieval techniques of torture remain in wide use today. For example, tearing out the nails of the fingers and toes with pliers—sometimes after first driving sharp needles into the extremely tender flesh underneath—remains a favorite tool of the twenty-first century torturer's arsenal. Although slowly roasting the soles of the bare feet over hot coals is, perhaps, a bit low-tech, the Russian KGB was certainly not above achieving the same purpose by using the flat, red-hot surface of an everyday clothes iron. Bizarre methods of confinement that take advantage of modern medical knowledge are also quite common, if rather low-tech. The prisoner—suitably bound to deter the expected range of reactive motion—may be connected to an electrical apparatus, where wires are wound around his fingers and toes and an electric probe is used to deliver current to his genitals. A signal generator and attached voltmeter precisely control the intensity of the pain so inflicted. Modern torturers also avail themselves of pharmacological techniques that were, of course, utterly unavailable in ages past: an example is the injection of drugs that heighten the human brain's perception of, and reaction to, pain before any physical torture is actually employed.

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

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?

Application of moral standards that are deemed to be acceptable by the people utilizing the means.

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
Main Entry: pseu·dol·o·gy
Pronunciation: südälj
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -es
Etymology: Greek pseudologia, from pseudologos speaking falsely (from pseud- + logos speech) + -ia -y -- more at LEGEND
: FALSEHOOD, LYING

www.m-w.com
Main Entry: ide·ol·o·gy
Pronunciation: "I-dE-'ä-l&-jE, "i-
Variant(s): also ide·al·o·gy /-'ä-l&-jE, -'a-/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
Etymology: French idéologie, from idéo- ideo- + -logie -logy
1 : visionary theorizing
2 a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
- ide·ol·o·gist /-jist/ noun

The interrogation actions described in wikipedia are not the actions employed by USA interrogators. The actions USA interrogators describe employing are the following:
1. druging;
2. fatiguing;
3. humiliating;
4. frightening;
5. repeting.

They do not use pain that kills, maims, disables, or injures.

Given that some actual ends do justify some means

The actions of civilized interrogators are and ought to be more ruthless when seeking information from uncivilized human beings that they anticipate will help relieve the pain and suffering of innocent civilized human beings.

Quote:

Given that some actual ends do justify some means

No, they don't. Provide a real-world example of this, and I will counter it.

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?

Application of moral standards that are deemed to be acceptable by the people utilizing the means.

Clearly, it is interrogators that use the means to interrogate.

So your answer equates to:
means that are deemed to be acceptable to interrogators, according to the moral standards of interrogators, are justified.

Oh, Oh! Such means are justified by the end: acceptable to interrogators according to the moral standards of interrogators. That is an actual end justifying a means or a set of means.

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It doesn't matter what the situation is, 'civilized' interrogators, as you say, cannot cross that line just because the situation seems more dire to them at the time. It's one reason that there are very strict rules covering the detainee-interrogator experience.

Cycloptichorn

The actions USA interrogators describe employing are the following:
1. druging;
2. fatiguing;
3. humiliating;
4. frightening;
5. repeating.

They do not use pain that kills, maims, disables, or injures.

You are wrong; it is society that provides the interrogators the ability to do what they are doing. It is society that decides which actions of the interrogators are justified, and which are not, not the interrogators themselves.
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Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You are wrong; it is society that provides the interrogators the ability to do what they are doing. It is society that decides which actions of the interrogators are justified, and which are not, not the interrogators themselves.
...
Cycloptichorn

False! I am not wrong on this.

Let's say for the sake of argument that all the acceptable actions of interrogation (i.e., A) are decided by Bush (or whomever), and all the unacceptable actions of interrogation (i.e., U) are also decided by Bush (or whomever).

In making those decisions Bush is anticipating ends. One of those anticipated ends is saving lives. Another of those anticipated ends is not offending a majority of the electorate. So he selects A to the end of saving lives but avoids U to the end of avoiding offending a majority of the electorate.

In other words, it doesn't matter who decides what means; what matters is how they decide what means. I argue that to be rational they must decide based on anticipated ends: that is, they use the anticipated ends they choose in order to justify the means they choose to achieve those ends.

The dictum that the ends never justify the means is pure pseudology.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Bush Sneaks In and Out of Baghdad Again
24 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings

Iraq's civil war claimed at least 55 lives on Tuesday. Guerrillas detonated a coordinated of car bombs in Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing 24 persons and wounding nearly 50. Among the targets were senior police officers, and the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (led by Jalal Talabani). Although the press is trying to tie this operation to the Zarqawi group, Kirkuk is such a complicated political scene that it is unwise to speculate on the identity of the guerrilla group that targeted the city. Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs are competing for the oil capital of the north, and Kurds have taken over the police force and are flooding the province with settlers, creating enormous discontents.

In other violence, an intelligence officer was assassinated in Karbala, guerrillas targeted a police convoy in Samarra with a bomb but killed 4 civilians and wounded 7 others; two university professors were assassinated, one in Baghdad and one in Basra, and 14 corpses were found in the capital.

This Reuters report has to be read carefully to see how parlous the situation in Iraq really is. The president of the United States, who supposedly conquered the country three years ago, had to keep his visit secret even from the prime minister he was going to visit, until five minutes before their meeting. That tells me Bush's people don't trust Nuri al-Maliki very far. In fact, apparently Bush's people don't trust Bush's people very far-- only Cheney and Condi are said to have known about the trip in the US. And, Air Force One had to land after a sharp bank, to throw off any potential shoulder-held missile launchers in the airport area. The president couldn't go to the Green Zone in a motorcade, for fear of car bombs, but had to be helicoptered in. This ending says it all: "Bush left after night fell to return to Washington. The plane left at a steep angle with its lights out and the shades drawn."

In almost surreal rhetoric, Bush said Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs must be curtailed. He said this after the Iraqi vice president and the head of the biggest bloc in parliament both went off to Tehran and praised Iran's stabilizing role. If Bush thinks that Shiite Iranians are the problem in fanatically Sunni Ramadi and Adhamiyah, we're in even bigger trouble than I thought.

Bush tried to define down victory to a general ability of people to go about their lives. He said it was unreasonable to expect to end "all violence." But Mr. Bush, no one suggested that you end "all violence." The goal here is to win the guerrilla war.

During a guerrilla war, people always go about their daily lives, except when a bomb is going off in their specific neighborhood. So if the goal is that Iraqis should be able to buy bread and go to school and drive to work, most of them have that already most of the time. It is just that little problem of some 12,000 people a year being blown up, assassinated, or beheaded and their heads wrapped in cellophane and stored in banana crates along the side of the road that remains.

In other words, Bush defines the main weapon in the guerrilla war, carbombings, as ineradicable, and declares that he can win that war without actually ending its main weapon. It is a cheap trick of rhetoric, a prestidigitation of the lips. "These are not the 'droids you're looking for."

Meanwhile a new security sweep will be launched in an attempt to make Baghdad more secure. Let's see if this one is more successful than Operation Lightning, a similar set of sweeps launched last year this time to no apparent lasting effect.

US troops are under enormous strain in Iraq. They cannot most often tell friend from foe. When they first arrived, they were encouraged to make friends with local Iraqis, but now often are told to keep to themselves, just because it isn't clear who the guerrillas are. They are apparently constantly taking mortar or sniping fire, most of it ineffectual and so never announced to the press. If they go out on the road, they are in substantial danger of being blown up. Few units haven't lost a dear friend and colleague. They are fighting for a local government that often seems not much to want them and clearly wishes them gone sooner rather than later (Maliki says at most 18 months). Some high ranking members of the government have been scathing about them. The Europeans see US troops in Iraq as a bigger threat to stability in the Middle East than is Iran. Some 60 percent of Americans think their being there was a mistake in the first place, which cannot be good for morale, which is slipping inside the military according to polls. They signed up to fight for their country and their country asked them to fight in Iraq, and in the military you do as you are told, so it is a raw deal for them to end up being so unappreciated when they are doing brave things every day. So I get it that they are frustrated. But, it just is very bad politics for them to sit around singing songs about killing Iraqis, and worse politics to videotape it.

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This is a completely false argument on your part. The justification of Means are not judged by the ends they bring about, but by the inherent worth of the means themselves.
Pseudology! Means have zero inherent worth outside their utility in achieving desireable ends.

Here you have provided substantial evidence that you have little understanding of the general problem solving process, much less the specific problem solving process of saving lives in Iraq.

The means ultimately selected by competent problem solvers to achieve ends (i.e., solve problems) are those available means that are projected to most likely achieve those ends. In Iraq, we seek a solution which will enable us to save lives and minimize corruption of either those lives we save or our own lives. So we have two ends (i.e., two problems to solve): saving lives; and not corrupting lives. We select those means which enable us to achieve both those ends. If the means selected by the problem solvers achieve those desired ends, then those means are justified.

We don't not torture because it would 'offend the electorate'; we don't torture because torturing people is inherently wrong. It does not take any examination of the ends of the means in order to come to that decision.
But you contradict yourself by your failure to recognize that one of the ends that should always accompany any other end or ends we pursue is to not do anything that is inherently (or intrinsically) wrong: that is not to use any means that is inherently (or intrinsically) wrong. That is an end in itself.

Your contention would support the argument that any means are just as long as it brings about the desirable ends to those who are carrying out the means themselves. Therefore, what Saddam did to all those innocents - killed and tortured them - was just, because it accomplished the ends that he desired them to, according to your logic.
My contention actually is: any means are just so long as they bring about desirable ends . In our case, we agree that one of those desireable ends is to not accomplish anything that is inherently or intrinsically wrong.

This is obviously absurd. The truth is that actions are not judged on their 'justness' based on the outcome of the actions, but on the worth of the actions themselves.
This comment is absurd on its face, because it fails to recognize that the 'justness' of an action is judged by people who are fallible: people who work to achieve an end and people who are affected by that end. Humans judge what is just to them, since they cannot prove they can appeal directly to a higher wisdom even though many think they can. What is a worthy action in the minds of some is unworthy in the minds of others. I judge it just to save lives at the expense of the lives of those who choose to withhold information that will save llives. You appear to me to judge otherwise.

Once again, I will ask you to provide another example not connected to terrorism or torture in order to prove that some means are justified by the ends.
I did that above and in prior posts. But what the heck, I'll pick a simpler example:
means = tool user & tools = me, bench, vise, drill, screw driver, wrench, hammer, saw, wood, nuts and bolts.
ends = wooden table built without use of unjust means.
These means are justified by the ends they achieved.

You have not countered my example of stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
I believe stealing from the rich to give to the poor does not achieve its alleged end: that is, doesn't do that which is just and reduces the number of poor.

I believe stealing from the rich to give to the poor is unjust because:
(1) It violates the COMMANDMENT, "Thou shall not steal;"
(2) It corrupts the poor by turning the poor into helpless parasites who are disabled thereby from removing themselves from poverty;
(3) It corrupts the rich by causing them to empower those that do the stealing to steal more and make more poor.
(4) It reduces the number of rich and the amount they voluntarily give to those poor who thereby work to remove themselves from poverty.

Your semantics game doesn't change the fact that just because an individual decides something is right or wrong, doesn't make it right or wrong.
Your semantic game doesn't change the fact that you do not cite what actually makes something certainly right or wrong. Unless you consider yourself an absolute authority on the subject of what is just, pray tell what you do think is an authority.

Cycloptichorn

The following is just intended as another prospective on the events of last few days.

emphasis added by ican

Quote:

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Bush Sneaks In and Out of Baghdad Again
24 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings

Iraq's civil war claimed at least 55 lives on Tuesday. Guerrillas detonated a coordinated of car bombs in Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing 24 persons and wounding nearly 50. Among the targets were senior police officers, and the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (led by Jalal Talabani).
...
This Reuters report has to be read carefully to see how parlous the situation in Iraq really is. The president of the United States, who supposedly conquered the country three years ago, had to keep his visit secret even from the prime minister he was going to visit, until five minutes before their meeting. That tells me Bush's people don't trust Nuri al-Maliki very far. In fact, apparently Bush's people don't trust Bush's people very far-- only Cheney and Condi are said to have known about the trip in the US. And, Air Force One had to land after a sharp bank, to throw off any potential shoulder-held missile launchers in the airport area. The president couldn't go to the Green Zone in a motorcade, for fear of car bombs, but had to be helicoptered in. This ending says it all: "Bush left after night fell to return to Washington. The plane left at a steep angle with its lights out and the shades drawn."
...

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George Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR constituted a prescient warning to humanity.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/

It was published in June 1949. He time-labeled his warning 1984, but his warning is a perpetual and timeless warning of humanity's propensity to contain and even court personalities in its midst that are dangerous to humanity's existence.

George Orwell in NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, Part III, Chapter IV, wrote:

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.