On Apr 23, 2009, at 8:07 AM, Roger Howard wrote: > I don't think we disagree, unless you think Rush represents > everyone. I > know plenty of Republicans, and the overarching theme I've heard > since 9/11 > is one of fear, much more than reprisal. We've sacrificed civil > liberties, > seen the security apparatus in the US grow enormously, let illegal > surveillance happen... all of this because of fear.
I think the disagreement is subtile. I do think Rush represents the vast majority of the pro torture faction in that his position is is either that torture is both effective and ethical or that it is effective and he simply doesn't care that it is unethical. I don't want to try to parse the difference between fear and hatred too finely because those emotions blend into each other. I also don't see much point in trying to distinguish between 'it's not wrong' and 'it wrong but I don't care'. You started this thread by saying that many Americans simply don't care what happens to Arabs and Moslems. I'm just going one step further and saying that for this group those who do care are weak and/or foolish. > I just want to be clear - I find the act of abusing prisoners > abhorrent. If you think it's effective and still find abhorrent you are unique or nearly so. > I > simply disagree with the notions that 1) the abuse is solely > motivated by > vengeance and the desire to inflict pain Here is where I have trouble following you. Ever since Bush ridiculed Karla Tucker's clemency plea there has been a big faction of the Repub party, and a few democrats, who have made political hay out of their image as tough guys into vengeance and contemptuous of any feelings of mercy. Surely the fact that the biggest applause line at the Repub convention was Romney's remark about making Guantanamo bigger tells you something. Surely you don't deny that the Sarah Palin followers and the folks at the tea parties were angry. You say that the abuse wasn't "solely" motivated by vengence and in a sense I agree but the argument went like this: For Americans to be safe they need a 'strong' leader. A strong leader is a stern father figure, quick to anger and ready to visit vengeance on America's enemies. Those who are unduly concerned with how we treat our enemies are weak and it is dangerous to have a weak leader. I don't see how you can correctly identify the element of vengeful hysteria present in some of the left wing anti-Bush faction and not see that the Bushies deliberately played on the same emotions. I hasten to add that America really was attacked and some of the anti- Moslem hysteria was initially somewhat understandable. But America is supposed to stand for something. > (while that may well be a personal > motive by many involved, there is certainly a belief by many that > these > methods could be effective, and even if that's just part of the time > that's > good enough for them... not for me); and 2) that the methods are > entirely > ineffective - they may be more or less ineffective that humane > interrogation, but if we insist that they are entirely ineffective our > opposition to the methods will be shot full of holes as there are > bound to > be cases where people did know something tangible gave it up under > coercion; hell, on right-wing KFI radio last night during my drive > home I > heard a good 45 minutes along those lines.... that the torture of > Zubayda > helped identify and stop a major attack on LA (the Library building > downtown), and therefore these methods do work, and are really not > so bad - > in fact, they really aren't torture at all anyway. It's dangerous to argue either way. If you admit that torture is a little bit effective then you have to deal with the 'nuclear bomb hidden in American city' scenario. But I didn't argue that torture was completely ineffective, that it was in fact counter-effective because I thought that was expedient. My argument that torture is counter-effective is simply based on the evidence and the testimony of experts. We know that torture yielded disinformation that contributed to terrible policy mistakes. We know that torture motivated anti-US forces and helped them recruit. So far a the cases where torture supposedly worked are of the form 'we tortured person A and we got valuable information from person A'. More detailed case histories have shown that the information was obtained using conventional interrogation techniques either before the torture commenced or long after the torture was discontinued. One also sees arguments of the form 'torture works because McCain admitted under torture that his target was a power plant.' That fine except that the North Vietnamese knew his target before they started torturing him. > > Efficacy doesn't make it any better (or worse) in my eyes, I think the > argument should be first, and foremost, one of morality and > humanity, not > of efficacy. I agree. I still am curious about Cheney's evidence of efficacy, though. -- Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -Steven Wright, comedian (b. 1955) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
