« What he said ... | Main | So California's #1 Thanksgiving Sport »
November 23, 2005
On Torture
If you haven't been following the news about the McCain amendment that would ban "torture" altogether, a lively discussion is taking place at Jeff Goldstein's. Cynically, I believe the word "torture" has become as politically tainted as the word "rape", with "anti-torture" advocates weilding the term as a cudgel to shutdown serious discussion rather than facilitate a clear understanding of the issues. Within Goldstein's thread there was the to-be-expected comparison of Islamism to how America handled the former USSR. As I commented there
There is a great deal of difference between the USSR, a nation where totalitarianism was enforced from the top down on a society that culturally and individuallly was at least as interested in its own ultimate survival as we were vs an ideology operating pan-nationally, so steeped in a celebration of death as a goal it is able to recruit enough suicide bombers to regularly blow up themselves up. Islamism is also an ideology that preaches the “non-humanism” of non-moslems, making it possible for them to target and slaughter with abandon civilian men, women and children.
Go watch the video of Nick Berg screaming as his head is slowly sawed off by fanatics screaming “Allah Akbar!” and then try to tell me that Islamists are impressed by any moral restraint exercised by the West.
Posted by Darleen at November 23, 2005 07:00 AM
Comments
McCain simply realizes something many do not;--that torture is not effective in getting usable information.
Torture carried out as military policy tends to put our own troops in danger of the same treatment.
And it destroys US credibility.
Just not a good idea. As most people should have learned from the practices of the Spanish Inquisition.
McCain is just putting all those two-bit Torquamadas in the US military on notice.
Posted by: Carl W. Goss at November 23, 2005 09:07 AM
Carl
First off, please define what you mean by torture. Understand that for many people that would include having female interrogators for moslem prisoners because it causes them "mental anguish" or "humiliation."
That is not torture.
Posted by: Darleen at November 23, 2005 12:31 PM