[lit-ideas] Re: Waterboarding Bodies Mattered
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:27:32 +0100
Eric asked what would Lit-Ideas members do?
Probably badger the suspect with endless philosophical trip hazards before
shouting very loudly out of sheer annoyance.
My big problem with the torture thing is that it's use, or at least it's
imagined use by necessity involves a lot of 'if, then' statements. If such
and such was about to happen then the use of torture might prevent it. But
if you did resort to torture and the suspect didn't speak up, would that
torture be justified if the imagined event didn't happen. In all
circumstances, the justification (or the attempt at it) takes place after
the event.
So while Cheney may justify the use of torture because it prevented another
9/11, is he saying that torturing suspects who didn't provide important
information wasn't justifiable.
I don't belief the fact that 'it works' is a justification. You have to look
at it before the fact.
Interestingly, another, unrelated, list I read readily accepts that torture
has always happened within the CIA, it's various franchises, in former
communist countries etc. The difference was that the Bush Administration
thought they had enough control over the political agenda that they could
justify it legally.
Simon
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