There is No Excuse For The Evil Use of Torture.

[Uncle Joe]

Torture does as much damage to the humanity of the torturer and moral authority of the torturing nation as it does the victims.

The fig leaf promoted by some is that torture is necessary in order to prevent a greater evil or harm, however torture; not only produces bad information, it creates more hatred and hatred begets evil intention, so in effect you feed the very beast you claim to despise.

Thus in two ways, torture threatens national security in spite of the claims by some of needing to torture as a means of security, but what if the intent to torture wasn't to prevent a greater harm to the nation? What if the use of torture was intended as a means to extract bad information on purpose? What if the motivation behind the evil use of torture was to promote an even greater evil; a premeditated war based on false witness? I believe that would be a double evil.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x303139

I hate to say it, but I believe this to be the case.

[gratuitous]

1. Thankfully, we're not going to inquire too closely into the whys and wherefores

So we won't have to be embarrassed (if such a thing is even possible), or have to proffer a bunch of increasingly unlikely explanations, or endure the furrowed brows and the tut-tutting of the dirty fucking hippies who are so squeamish about ramming someone's head into a wall. But we will still feel authorized to tell the Germans and Japanese what they should teach their school kids about World War II.

[Uncle Joe]

2. On that front, I'm feeling little more optimistic.

If we were still living in the *PI Age and information still predominantly flowed one way, from the top down I would tend to agree with you.

*Pre-Internet, I just coined that.:)

[gratuitous]

4. I sincerely hope you're correct

And I'm doing what I can as a private citizen with little more than my citizenship to use as a lever to put added pressure on our elected officials. This isn't some "partisan" issue; real live laws were really broken and criminals were put in charge of things in my name and with my tax dollars. The balance of society says that someone has to pay for these crimes against humanity, and I'd greatly prefer it be the perpetrators, architects and masterminds of this torture, rather than innocent citizens who had no say in its implementation.

[dalaigh lllama]

3. I think anyone who actually reads what's already out there on what we've done

would come to the same conclusion. But, denial and rationalization are S.O.P. for most people, I think.

[Uncle Joe]

7. I may be wearing rose colored glasses, but I believe

S.O.P.s; at least in regards to the societal level are in the process of being rewritten.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I agree. I have nightmares of an unidentified former torturer moving in next door to me

I have my grand kids here all the time.

At least I can go online and identify all the pedos who live around here. But the torturers who are worse then pedos will be walking and living among us and we won't know who they are. The thought of that terrifies me.

Don

[Uncle Joe]

8. I know how you feel, Don

but the scariest part to me is not the torturers per se as those in the responsible positions of government, the corporate media and else where that legitimize their behavior.

While the torturers have the immediate micro impact of pebbles causing ripples in the pond, their apologists are boulders dropping in a river.

Having said that, I also know everything is relative and that in general a person's immediate world registers the greatest emotional impact.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Only A Full Investigation Will Open The Doors...

No matter how the wingnuts want to either deny, hide or condone torture, the truth will come out. It was too widespread, systemic and continues to destroy this country's reputation around the world. In essence, we have become a "rogue nation"...and the longer the US tries to "justify" this violation of human decency and international laws, the harder it will be for this country to regain any real credibility or world leadership.

The torture enablers (and in my opinion that includes ANYONE who tries to justify this) are now playing with polls and waving all sorts of claims that its kept us safe with little proof. You'd think the boooooshie regime would milk every single drop of propaganda had they gotten a real plot foiled. Instead, we got duct tape alerts about guys planing to blow up buildings without the explosives or any clue on how to do it...but Tom Ridge sure got out there and jumped up and down and Asscroft hyped how "on the job" he was. It was a sham.

Yep...let's waive all privilidge on ALL memos and other communications of the booooosh regime. Not partial disclosure...if shooter wants to clear his name...it ALL comes out!

It's sad that the "most powerful country in the world" with all the technical toys and carefully trained intel people have to resort to Torquemada techniques and then try to justify it.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Yes and Iraq was the target within days after 9/11.

I believe Cheney/Bush were never looking for the truth, their minds were already made up and it was all just a matter of putting together a fig leaf to justify their actions whether it was outing a covert CIA Agent whose husband just happened to disagree with their conclusions or torturing prisoners for bad information, national security had nothing to with it.

Indeed I believe their policies were a national security threat.