Thoughts on the ‘Torture Debate’
Heya all…
As you know, I am in the Military, getting ready to deploy to the Middle East…so one generally assumes I am biased towards a ‘conservative viewpoint’ (far from the case BTW). At any rate, I have been following the debate in the American Politics venue on the current revelations on just how far the previous administration stooped in its interrogation and treatment of people captured as ‘Terror Suspects’. Here is a good article on the issue: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/torturing-for-propaganda-purpo.html
A comment to this article struck me as particularly telling, one which sums up my position on this debate pretty nicely:
GM653:
I would be interested in where you received your interrogation training.
Because at the Army Intelligence School we were taught early some very important points about the use of this garbage.
It. Is. Morally. Reprehensible.
It. Does. Not. Work.
It. Puts. Soldiers’. Lives. In. Danger.That doesn’t even address the fact that it violates most everything this nation is supposed to stand for. There was a reason that this stuff wasn’t found in the Army training manual.
The terrorists achieved a huge strategic victory when the US stooped to using this stuff. In the name of defending the “homeland” (I hate that term), we cast aside everything that makes this country great and worth defending.
My sorry hide isn’t what is worth defending, and neither is yours. Who we are as a people and a nation, and our founding ideals, are the things worth dying for. When you cast that aside, you’ve lost already. That’s what the terrorists were trying to do in the first place.
Comment as you will…
-Eirik
P.S.: Adding this quote..
Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands. Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any prisoner. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” – George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
Torture is an awful thing in all its forms. Recall bygone days when your older siblings (or relatives in general) would hold you down to play ‘tickle torture’, making you laugh so hard you can’t breathe, and they have your arms and legs pinned so you can’t get away. Imagine if they continued that sort of thing for hours on end, never ceasing until you would say anything, do anything, to get them to stop. That is what torture is. That is what torture does. It makes liars out of honest men, punishes the innocent, empowers the guilty, turns friend into foe, and disgraces every single principle our country stands for. Torture is an evil practice and the hands of good American soldiers should not be sullied by such acts.
Worst of all, these brave men and women, who fight so hard for the future of our country, who are just following orders, are the ones being punished for doing so. The ones ordering them to do it, those in positions of great power, receive a slap on the wrist, if anything, while these soldiers are dishonorably discharged for following orders. Their faces become known to the world and a stigma follows them around for the rest of their days, little better than war criminals like Saddam Hussein in the eyes of the very people they were fighting for. And they deserve better than that. This is why torture is an absolute no.
And it goes even beyond that! The innocent civilians who were falsely imprisoned with the terrorists would, if and when they were/are released, would hate America for its treatment of them, so much so that they in turn become terrorists, seeing America as evil because of what our country did to them.