It's made it less likely that anyone will surrender to US troops, it's made it more likely that captured troops will be mistreated, it's made it easier for terrorists to recruit, and its severely weakening the norms prohibiting torture, although that only covers the release of the document and not the torture. If people have the time, i found this essay written in 2007 that covers the ticking time bomb moral dilemma to be a very interesting read.
I think that is to an extent true, although arguably this document reveals nothing that we didn't know or at least strongly suspect already. What it may represent is the start of a culture change: for there to be an official voice that cuts through the politics of plausible denial/avoidance and clearly states that such practices are not OK, and for there to be at least a debate about it. It's a tiny step, but it's better than the alternative of collusion and self-justification. Good article.
I would say it's as a result of the report, but i guess i comes down to if you believed the torture was going on before that report, either way getting confirmation that it was going on only exacerbates the problems.
Is this an issue of principle or pragmatism. On both counts torture is undesirable in general as the information is supect, unreliable and dammit it's just not something I think we should be doing as a matter of routine. However unless you are an idealist, it's unlikely you cannot think of a scenario where it might be better that an interrogation is pushed to the limit, where it concerned a an act of mass-murder that was about to happen and it was sufficently clear that the suspect had information that would allow it to be stopped. But that will have been somewhere between 0 and not many of that the report concerns.
This is potentially somewhat of a slippery slope, isn't it? You can attempt to justify torture by positing a sufficiently drastic scenario where it's apparently the only option, but once you've done that, you can incrementally reduce the extremity of the scenario until torture is a routine occurence. Where do you draw the line, and how to avoid that line being drawn ever lower?
Sure it's slippery as hell. To be honest I'm happy with the UK government sayign that they will never use it. But in extreme situations, I'm not sure I'd want that to be honored. Thankfully I am not the one making those decisions.
You betcha. If the choice of good or evil becomes a matter of calculated balances, then that opens the way to calculating things in whatever way you want to get the desired outcome. Ah, but if you allow the government to decide what is moral on your behalf, are you any better than that eponymous guy who was "only following orders"?
There has been one prosecution and imprisonment relating to CIA torture. And since we're sharing urls, I'd like to put forward this one. It's long, at 27 pages, but even if you only read the first few pages you'll have a greater understanding of state apparatus.
torturing anyone doesn't work. they will only tell you what they think you want to hear to make the torture stop.
It's all been said really. Practically, we can say with certainty (a) that torture doesn't work (this has been shown theoretically and empirically plenty of times), and (b) that resorting to torture validates the claims of terrorists about Western brutality and immorality and escalates the situation it's meant to aid in controlling. Ethically, even if you suppose that moral choices are weighted and that a small evil is acceptable to achieve a greater good, we can still say with certainty that torture is wrong even if it could save lives, because of the problem of future possibilities: you can never know that torture has the potential to save lives in advance of using it, and so invariably you will end up torturing people needlessly and pointlessly, even torturing innocent people. It's the same last-ditch reason - over and above all other reasons - why we should oppose the death penalty: there's always the possibility you'll get the wrong man. That trumps any other moral arguments. Even if it works, even if we decide it's an acceptable moral compromise...you risk torturing or killing innocent people. There's a word for people who accept that risk to achieve their ends. Spoiler Spoiler alert: it's 'terrorist', duh.
Sure, I'd hate to have to make those decisions. But while I find it horrible to think of, I have to admit that if it was the lives of my family at stake, I'd probably do whatever I thought might help save them and my ethical issues would have gone out the window. Ultimately if you want to take the moral high ground here you need to say that you would never want anyone suffering any of this no matter what they were up to and no matter how much it affected you or people that you care about? Then would you say that any threats or duress in interrogation is ever justified? Against any enemy?
But in the report was there anything about the CIA cutting peoples fingers off? Waterboarding is pretty brutal, but not quite dismemberment.
Strangely the techniques used seem similar to what Britain did to Nazi PoWs in WW2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...thods-belie-proud-boast-fought-clean-war.html
That's fine, because you'd be acknowledging that your ethics have gone out the window. You would choose not to be the Good Guy anymore and you wouldn't pretend to still be one. I would say that no ill treatment of the enemy during interrogation is ever justified. Not just because it wouldn't work, but also because it is not what Good Guys do. Don't get me wrong: where protecting my loved ones are concerned, I am prepared to be a very, very Bad Guy indeed, just like most people. And that's OK, as long as I accept the consequences of that, and do not carry on pretending that I'm a Good Guy. Would waterboarding feel like torture if it was done to you?
Indeed it would. And yes I'd probably confess to murdering JFK after a session or two. But at the same time I'd take it over having my fingers cut off. And the report isn't suggesting it happened so lets not confuse things. There are regimes and terrorist groups that do go in for that sort of thing of course. Clearly not our dear Russian friends who are now outraged at the report. Hmmm.
Question: If the UK government is found to be complicit, or even worse have carried out their own torture, would people expect or call for those responsible to face prosecution ?
Degree and context would affect this. Slippery slope again and I don't deny we're on it. But being on it isn't the same as being at the bottom of it. And are you taking only about the post 9/11 world or would you go back further?
Actually that's exactly what it means. Which also answers your question of waterboarding vs. cutting off fingers. Doing something bad is not exonerated by the fact that you could do worse.
Yeah, I'd want those responsible to face justice. Again, it comes down to being the good guys - that means not breaking the law or committing heinous acts, and if you do, you have to face the consequences. Note that "those responsible" isn't limited to the torturers themselves, but extends to those who authorised the torture (and arguably to those who knew about it but did nothing to prevent it).
