fidelioscabinet (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fidelioscabinet) wrote,@ 2008-03-28 08:11:00 |
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Blog against torture day
It appalls me that this should be necessary in a civilized country that is a signatory to pacts like the Geneva Conventions, that has provisions in its constitution against forced self-incrimination and cruel and unusual punishments.
Torture is evil. It is also useless. It may be possible to make people talk; it is not possible to make them tell you anything true or useful. It puts our own people in danger, it damages our reputation as a nation that believes it is entitles to be a leader among other nations, and it means that our enemies in the field will prefer to die rather than surrender, as they cannot expect decent treatment. It makes us new enemies among those who had been undecided and indifferent.
My father was a veteran of World War II. After the war in Europe was over, his commanding officer volunteered the unit for occupation duty, in large part because he hoped that if they were tied down in Europe, they wouldn't be sent to take part in the planned invasion of Japan. The assignment they received was managing Dachau as a Displaced Persons camp. He came away with his opinions about how decent people ought to treat other people much stronger than they were before, to put it mildly.
By tolerating this evil, we betray and dishonor the principles the United States was founded upon and the efforts of the veterans of World War II, who saw such evils up close, but also the sufferings of those who were prisoners of war in that war, and in Korea and Vietnam. They have every right to expect better of us.
Torture and the toleration of torture come from cowardice, ignorance, malice, and cruelty. The cowardly should not dictate our policies, the ignorant need to learn that nothing useful comes from torture, the malicious and the cruel should not be our guides and leaders, but should instead be restrained by the efforts of every decent person in this country.
(Note to fundamentalist Christians who aren't having a problem with torture: Do you ever read the Bible, or do you just let your preacher and Tim Lahaye tell you what's in it? Because I think it's easy to see where Jesus would go with the issue; start with Matthew 25:40. He has some other things to say elsewhere in the New Testament that are in agreement with that, and you will also note that Jesus wasn't too strong on the "People like us are OK, but we don't need to be nice to people who aren't like us" argument.)
(Note to Really Smart People who know better and are despising me right this very minute for being a weak and wimpy liberal who would see America destroyed because I don't have to guts to let people do What Must Be Done: I can't say it any better than John Rogers at King Fu Monkey:
This is America, which makes you the prince of absolutely fucking nobody.)
It appalls me that this should be necessary in a civilized country that is a signatory to pacts like the Geneva Conventions, that has provisions in its constitution against forced self-incrimination and cruel and unusual punishments.
Torture is evil. It is also useless. It may be possible to make people talk; it is not possible to make them tell you anything true or useful. It puts our own people in danger, it damages our reputation as a nation that believes it is entitles to be a leader among other nations, and it means that our enemies in the field will prefer to die rather than surrender, as they cannot expect decent treatment. It makes us new enemies among those who had been undecided and indifferent.
My father was a veteran of World War II. After the war in Europe was over, his commanding officer volunteered the unit for occupation duty, in large part because he hoped that if they were tied down in Europe, they wouldn't be sent to take part in the planned invasion of Japan. The assignment they received was managing Dachau as a Displaced Persons camp. He came away with his opinions about how decent people ought to treat other people much stronger than they were before, to put it mildly.
By tolerating this evil, we betray and dishonor the principles the United States was founded upon and the efforts of the veterans of World War II, who saw such evils up close, but also the sufferings of those who were prisoners of war in that war, and in Korea and Vietnam. They have every right to expect better of us.
Torture and the toleration of torture come from cowardice, ignorance, malice, and cruelty. The cowardly should not dictate our policies, the ignorant need to learn that nothing useful comes from torture, the malicious and the cruel should not be our guides and leaders, but should instead be restrained by the efforts of every decent person in this country.
(Note to fundamentalist Christians who aren't having a problem with torture: Do you ever read the Bible, or do you just let your preacher and Tim Lahaye tell you what's in it? Because I think it's easy to see where Jesus would go with the issue; start with Matthew 25:40. He has some other things to say elsewhere in the New Testament that are in agreement with that, and you will also note that Jesus wasn't too strong on the "People like us are OK, but we don't need to be nice to people who aren't like us" argument.)
(Note to Really Smart People who know better and are despising me right this very minute for being a weak and wimpy liberal who would see America destroyed because I don't have to guts to let people do What Must Be Done: I can't say it any better than John Rogers at King Fu Monkey:
This is America, which makes you the prince of absolutely fucking nobody.)
