“Is Torturing OK?”
Go ahead an innocently, wide eyed ask the question of your family, your friends, or priest and see if you get any lateral movement on whether its OK or not. Even if someone privately tells themselves it can be strategically useful (beyond all evidence) they tend to hum and haw about the moral justifications.
And the fact that the media hemmed and hawed so long about the moral justifications has let, or may let, the architects of a government torture intelligence program off scot free. Not only has the media managed to let this country down completely in its portrayal of torture (despite considerable evidence the show 24 was admired and even used as the basis for many ideas at Gitmo, the executive producer of the show thinks “I would hate to think that I’ve somehow been the midwife to some public acceptance of torture.”) it appears to be popular now to discount we liberal bloggers as the only who have an allergy to living in a country represent abroad by its use of torture (look crossways at American policy and Gitmo and waterboarding you go). That liberal bloggers stood up to the appointment of Brennan in an Obama administration, who in the past has argued for torture, is not an indication of liberal big-hearted idealism, but the failure of the media to project anything besides its own sensationalist amorality.
Torture has never, after all, been proven to be all that effective.
Greenwald has a rundown of the perpetrators…
-Marc-
Part of the problem is that torture is just one of the illegitimate and ineffective violent misuses of power that are pervasive in our society. Seriously questioning torture’s morality and efficacy leads to other dangerous questions, like: What’s the morality and efficacy of imprisoning two million of our citizens? What’s the morality and efficacy of invading other sovereign nations and killing hundreds of thousands of their civilians? One denial and the next denial are often co-conspirators.
Thank God that BushCo is over. Thank God that we have term limits to protect against dictator, though also Thank God that it is now apparent the power the central bankers and finance people have over the citizens and government. Mr. Bush is a marketing person put into place by these bankers who have the real power of the people. Now that their method is shown so clearly, maybe the people will have a chance to defend themselves or otherwise restructure the system to protect themselves from the raw thieving that is occuring now. God Bless the USA, but just like in personal life, the citizens have to do their part. Faith in God is not a passive activity.
From up on your pedestal you might no be able to see the other, “human bloggers”.
Seeing how torture doesn’t work anyway, why not just stop it if it is so morally questionable? Seems like such a simple solution to me.