Sorry if this picture is a little graphic, but I do think we need to know what circumstances we are debating today.No Matter what justification there is out there to torture someone, Sullivan comes out and says that "torture is the opposite of freedom." He applies these ideas to real life situations, and in the case of torture, real life contradiction from the U.S. of A. No matter the extent of coercion, the military for some time now has put people in indefensible positions, whereby we try to "break" those individuals. Sullivan is clear to state that once someone is broken they don't come back. I think this applies to clean torture too. Even though there are not any scares, a person is still broken. Even if they are pieced back together, it is not the same as before.
As we continue to use torture, we are at odds with democracy, liberty, and the very fundamentals of our society and country. Krauthammer is on a completely different side of the equation. (wrong side) He uses the ticking time bomb to make his point to torture. That is a strong case to make, and one that Sullivan does not combat in any straight forward way. Sullivan will use ideals of liberty, but may have to condone the fact that we suffering a bomb exploding. Sullivan makes the case that by washing our dirty hands we will be going down a very slippery slope instead of just an all out ban on torture. Sullivan, how do we contain abuse by not allowing torture?
The second point Krauhammer make is that unless torture can never be proven wrong, than it should always be an option. Well well, I say unless you can prove that torture will always produce a wanted end, then torture should be banned. Again we must keep the public eye in perspective. Using the Army Field Manual is a good idea, although we are not resorting to it. The military is still taking one more step ahead, so what is not working? I don't think we are there yet...
Thanks for showing the graphic picture Adam, it was an eye opener for me (I was afraid to goggle it myself). So much of what I learned as a youngster really comes to mind during these readings. Seeing the pic, I keep thinking about my mom telling us "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", which comes from the Bible as well, and I would not like that done to me, therefore I don't think I would be a good interrogator.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that we are not there yet, however, I dont think the Army Field Manual is going to change anything, there are to many hands that we would have to make sure are clean, and I don't think that is really possible.