Plenty of arguments are bandied about taking a stance against torture. John McCain says we shouldn't do it because it doesn't work and it opens the door to American soldiers being tortured. Another writer says Americans committing torture "drive(s) those undecideds into the arms of the enemy."
But the reason we should not torture is because it renders us hypocrites insofar as our laws are concerned and an aberration in the community of truly morally and ethically minded people. Torture is a crime against the innocent and the alleged guilty. And how many detainees have been found legally guilty before they were tortured? Torture victimizes whoever suffers it. To a much lesser extent it victimizes the individuals performing it institutionally as a duty. An institution that manages and euphemizes torture should be held accountable for crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.
Torture is wrong and doing it negates whatever claim we make about our values (life, liberty, law, and the pursuit of happiness, justice, etc).
I reject an argument against torture that pleads: torturing should not be done because it empowers an enemy. I reject McCain's argument that we shouldn't do it because the enemy will do it to us.
Torture should not be done because it is an abomination. Torturing betrays the notion of virtue in Western philosophy, Eastern thought, and in every relevant religious tradition. Furthermore, torture is illegal in the United States as our government has ratified the Geneva Conventions as law of our land.
As for the Republican debate, "we should have more Guantanamos," the rush to embrace torture was a candid shot of the unraveling of the grand old party. They can't cherish human suffering and expect to retain respectable footing in the human condition...even in America.
Amrit Singh at the Huffingpost writes about an Egyptian Christian, Sameh Khouzam who fled religious persecution in Egypt only to discover that the United States government is going to deport him -- even after a U.S. federal appeals court found that "it is more likely than not that he will be tortured." The government claims it is relying on "diplomatic assurances" from Egyptian officials that Sameh will not be tortured.
The Convention Against Torture was ratified as U.S. law in 1994. It prohibits the U.S. government from transferring a person "to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."
We as Americans have allowed ourselves to be compromised as we commit to the Torture doctrine through indifference, ignorance, and blind acceptance that now, suddenly, torture is useful in the war on Terror.
1 comment:
While it's good Frontline gets the information out to the public, is it excusable that Americans have remained ignorant or apathetic for this long? Also, there is no torture question. There's a torture problem. Calling it a question puts all of us at the top of the slippery slope sliding towards the ethical vacuum forged by Yoo, Gonzales, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet et al. I wish there was an Elba or St. Helena for these people who traded their humanity and ours...for what...why unmake civilization?! Every time I've heard John Yoo speak, I've felt revulsion. The words alone could do it, but paired with that overfed face and unmasculine voice really seals a moment of nausea.
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