Humint Events Online: Torture Makes a Come Back?

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Torture Makes a Come Back?

Fuckin' A, what can you say about this sick fuck-stick that hasn't already been said?

"Dick Cheney says Obama should reinstate waterboarding program"

Dahlia Lithwick makes the (what should be obvious) case against torture, but does it well-- "Still Stupid, Still Wrong, Still Immoral"
There is just one question about America and torture: whether we should do it. The answer to that, after hundreds of years of legal thinking and moral progress, not just in America but around the world, is no. It's bad for those asked to torture, and it's bad for our soldiers who will be tortured by others. A bunch of Bush officials secretly changed that answer for a time, based on misapprehensions of its efficacy, but for serious interrogators, ethical thinkers, and lawyers, the answer has always been no.

The folks who think otherwise are now using half-facts and unverifiable assertions to ask another question: Does torture work? Unsurprisingly, they claim that it does. That's nice. Let's ignore them. As former interrogator Matthew Alexander explains, even if it did work, we still wouldn't do it—because it's immoral and leads to all sorts of false claims and wasted time. The answer to question No. 1—should America torture?—has nothing to do with the bogus questions being raised today.

In short, if you are being led by a handful of torture apologists to "reconsider" the efficacy of torture, ask yourself whether you have yet heard even one credible account that water-boarding led us to Bin Laden. I haven't. At most, I have heard that it may have played some very small part in a vast tangle of intelligence and surveillance and patient detective work, all of which is unproven and—more important—impossible to disprove. A handful of cynics may want to relitigate the efficacy of torture based on facts not in evidence. The rest of us should continue to remind them that they have been answering the wrong question all along.


Also, Greenwald's post is good: "The illogic of the torture debate"

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Back in the "good old days" of the'60s and '70s the University campuses in the US of A were filled with politically aware students who had a moral code that ensured they spoke out on important issues with passion and commitment.

It was only 40 odd years ago that the Vietnam cock-up got the student treatment so where are those passionate young people today? One would think that the activists of old could reasonably be expected to have reached positions of authority that would allow them to change what we see happening but there is narry a peep.

What a shame that their moral fiber and unified voice has been so successfully bought off or destroyed that they are now willing to stand by and watch the humanitarian murder of millions in their collective name. They now choose to not only watch their own lives go down the toilet, but the lives of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Opposition and dissent used to be the hallmarks of a system that valued intellectuals and truly honored freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

Nowadays, true intellectual opponents and dissenters are being labelled conspiracy theorists and terrorists by a spineless and morally bereft public whose obvious bloodlust over the missing Osama snuff film now craves more blood sacrifice.

Cheney is only offering to fill that need by giving the American people what they want - more dead foreigners who just happen to be conspiracy theorists and terrorists - of course!

8:10 AM  

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