Torture is a Moral Issue

[pecunium]

I know I spend most of my time arguing about the practical lack of utility for torture; because that's the way the torture-mongers, and apologists, frame it.

But that's only part of the issue. The whole point of the ticking bomb is to redeem the torture as a morally valid act. "If you just talk to him, people will die. Isn't it better to hurt him a little and save lives?"

It's a forced choice, of course, with a poisoned pill. At it's heart it the sort of thing one argues about in late night bull sessions: "Would you kill Hitler to avert WW2 and save millions of people?" There is only one answer acceptable to the people who pose such things... "Yes, of course torturing someone to save a lives is the lesser evil."

At which point we are one has made the choice to join them in condoning torture. It may be posed as saving hundreds, but once you cross the line, the only thing one is haggling over is the price. They have already decided they accept torture. They want affirmation they have done the right thing.

If is interested in discussions of the actual moral question, there's a conference in June (26/27)

Torture Is A Moral Issue: Panel & Conference for People of Faith.

I'll be speaking on both days.


(if there is a recording/transcript, I'll see how one gets a copy)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The reason I used the term "relative" isn't that public opinion was turned all at once. It was an individual-by-individual experience (at least as Paul related his Damascus Road conversion) -- and it will probably have to be fought one person at a time again in this country.

The good news is that people like you are fighting it.

"There is no, legal, military tribunal which could have deep-sixed any of those captives. The legal situation surrounding the wars is such that almost all of them are either combatants, or detained persons being denied their rights (and probably subject to war crimes; as a result of their proper status, but I digress)."

I don't think this is a digression at all. In fact, I think it plays into the reasons the captives were held incommunicado and tortured long past the point where they would have had anything useful to say. I've noticed that people who do bad things often like to blame their victims so that they can continue to do bad things.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

If by relative, you mean that the state which followed the Romans dropped some common tortures (crucifixion) in favor of others (the rack, the Auto de Fe, the stake), and in the course of some 1,500 years they were phased out, I'd agree.

But that's not really the way your argument read.

It was a digression, because the one question (torture) isn't related to the other (illegal dentention; failure of the capturing power to properly treat the people in their care [and rendition is specifically covered. The capturing power is repsonsible for the treatment of prisoners it has taken, no matter who has actual physical custody], etc.).

The legality of the prisoners situation is immaterial to the question, "are they being tortured."

They are two very different crimes, and would have two very different resoltions.

[(Anonymous)]

Not to argue the point too much, I was using relative to refer to the spread of Christianity -- and to refer to the fact that the conversions often occurred one-by-one as people began to see the people the Romans tortured as martyrs instead of as dangerous radicals.

I intended this as an analogy to what I fear may be happening in previously pacific Muslim communities, as they see Americans as the new torturers and Muslim radicals as martyrs.

I saw what you saw as a digression as simply a response to my claim that people who are guilty of a crime (under whichever jurisdiction applies) can be properly prosecuted and locked up. I agree that torture is always a crime in itself -- and draw a parallel between the fact that jurisdictional law was not used to lock up the Guantanamo detainees following due process and the fact that torture was also used.

Or, to murder a metaphor, once you've thrown out the baby, there's no sense in keeping any of the bath water.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is any way to analyse why people converted. We no longer live in a land of plural cults of relatively equal weight.

The dynamic is different. The real (structural) difference for Christianity was it's aggressive proslytisation (which Judaism had foregone; though the need for circumsion slowed it's actual adoption), and it's subsequent exclusion of participation in other cultic practices.

That meant it was going to either wither and die, end up marginal (as with Judaism), or have an exponential growth, with the snowball, eventually, destroying all the other cults.

The question of "crime" brings up questions of jurisdiction (local or universal), apprehension, trial; and subsequent sentence, and a whole lot of contingent factors.

That Adghanistan was a war, removes the question of "crime" from the equation. Belligerents are constrained. Protected persons (all people in the zone of conflict who do not fall into a more favorable category) are to be governed under the laws of the invaded country (which laws are to be in effect until the conflict is resolved). The occupying forces are allowed to promulgate such regulations as are needed to keep peace/protect their forces.

They are not allowed to replace the code/impose their own laws.

So there can't be a "due process" question. The prisoners at Gitmo, etc. are either POWs, or Detained Persons. If they are Detained Persons the reason for them being so; as opposed to Protected Persons, or Refugees, has to be explained.

If they are POWs, they don't get a release date (POWs are held by the controlling power [i.e the people who captured, them, not always the the custodial power which is keeping them; one of the difficulties with that is the Northern Alliance/Afghan Forces are actually responsible for what we are doing to most of those prisoners: they aren't actually ours] until the cessation of hostilities, or exchange).

It's an interesting thing. We waged a war with the Taliban, and a new gov't, which we recognise, now exists. Does that mean the hostilities have ceased, and the POWs ought to be released?

Or is the Taliban a government in exile, and Karzai a puppet of an invading power? To avoid that, the previous administration declared the prisoners to be, "unlawful combatants": creating a new category not in the Geneva Conventions.

All of that really is a digression.