Trying to condone the burning to death of a man in a cage

[RationalMan]

63. There are two sides of this discussion.....

The first is whether one can justify ISIS' blanket barbarism from rapes to beheadings to burning a man alive. The other is whether, in the context of such barbarism, we are justified in engaging in similar acts.

On the first point I cannot justify ISIS' horrendous acts. The Koran strictly forbids, in fact, the burning of the human body. We know ISIS is not driven by Islam. They wrap themselves in Islam to justify their actions just like the killer of Dr. Tiller wrapped himself in the name of Christianity. They are not a political force at least there is no discernible end game for them. They claim they want to establish a caliphate. If so they have already claimed a sizable chunk of both Syria and Iraq. If that was their end game they should get to establishing the caliphate where they are and demonstrate the benefits to Muslims of living in that caliphate. They would then have something positive to take to the rest of the Muslim world about joining them.

They don't care about establishing a caliphate. Their ends and means are the same - terrorize as many people as possible and get their jollies doing it. They are evil but not any more evil than the Japanese and Germans in WWII, the genocides in Sudan and Rwanda, the actions of Boko Haram, the Catholics under the Inquisition, etc.

As a result we must accept the need to deal with this evil. Unfortunately that means we need to eliminate them or at least contain them and deny them access to money, arms and publicity. That is a tough call coming from me who doesn't believe war is ever the answer. But with these guys I don't see any other option than to systematically destroy them. There is no negotiating with them because their ends are simply to terrorize. They have no other goals.

The other point about this justifying American torture is totally wrong. I have had to de-friend a family member on Facebook for suggesting ISIS' actions justify our torture and that we should be torturing more. The alleged objective of American torture by the Bush-Cheney crew (and I'm not entirely convinced it isn't still going on under Obama to some extent) was to gain actionable intelligence. Despite 5-time draft-dodging and habitual lying Cheney's assertions, those involved with these enhanced interrogation techniques never gave us anything meaningful. Since that is the case the only reason for us to torture is revenge or a tit-for-tat.
Torture is illegal under U.S. law and under international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. If we are going to allow torture then withdraw from the treaties and change the law.