[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?

  • From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:58:20 -0400

Paul: It just strikes me as rather silly that a
lot of people think that an 'near-distant' threat
OR a just-past crime is somehow not a valid reason
to strike. You have to react IN the moment or not
at all. I think that it's actually backwards and
that someone who deliberates and carefully thinks
about retribution or preemption has done a much
greater service than one who reacts and kills
someone out of anger and passion in the heat of
the moment.

Two things to add to the debate.

(1) The availability of mass-death weapons changes
traditional assumptions about honor, rules of war,
even what qualifies as a "combatant." Remember
Pierre in _War and Peace_ going to the hill to
watch the battle? What a difference from the
battles of World War I! And how quaint the WWI
trench wars seem compared to Hiroshima. And how
different WWII is from modern terror wars, where
civilians die without even the declaration of war
or a nation to be held accountable.

(2) A more general point about civilization.
Ninety-five percent of the world could be
"civilized," but if that five percent remain
uncivilized, they will compel the rest to resort
to "uncivilized" behavior and tactics. Maybe when
the oil runs out we can expect pockets of high
civilization that can endure unchallenged because
the uncivilized will find it too difficult to
contact them.



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