Inhumanity
I was thinking this morning about yesterday's post and how we can judge whether or not a set of interrogation tactics constitutes torture. As j. morgan likes to point out, the word "torture" can has cultural connotations about what a person does or does not perceive to be upsetting - that forms of mental and religious torture are going to be different in different cultures based on what people experience as pain. Perhaps then the question we should ask when considering how to judge different interrogation tactics is, "is it inhumane?" Rather than, "is it torture?"
The reported (and as of yet unconfirmed, though as I've said that doesn't mean much to me) interrogation tactics employed by the US in Guantanamo bay are absolutely not inhumane.
posted by RJ @ 8:35 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Thats a really good point. I think thats dead on. Since torture is so relative, its not something we should really be arguing about -- or even acusing people of. However, then you can have the exact same discussion about what constitutes 'humane.' In the end its a moral call that ought to cross political boundaries and its something that we will probably never have a consesus on. I think, at this point, the most important thing is that what we are doing is not illegal in any sense and we are not, I believe, being cruel to these people in any way. We're not making them suffer just for pleasure. And in my opinion, we're not making them suffer that greatly. Reports about Koran flushings or using sexual tactics are few and even they, if you read what they are really saying, do not offer proof that they are the norm. So, even if these acts are happening and we, as a country, decide they are wrong, they are not indicitive of the overall state of US treatment of prisoners. As Abu Graib (sp?) showed, there are those in the service of the US who are immoral and will treat prisoners immorally. It also proved that when we find out about it we punish those people and their actions are not acceptable. We proved that we will not allow our people to treat prisoners in any way that is immoral or inhumane. In the end I see this as a moral victory for the US, not a defeat.
Post a Comment
<< Home