magerette
Hedgewitch
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834
So far the thread is proceeding along predictable lines, and I won't jump in the middle of the same old same old. I do have a few questions on the main topic of the thread about which I'm curious to see what people think:
I'm very confused on this issue, because politically for all the reasons cited above my gut wants Obama to ignore this for now, but morally I think there should be a full investigation of the counterproductive formerly illegal and inept interrogation techniques used to obtain information that invalidated many cases of known offenders from being brought to trail, and that served as recruiting posters for Al Queda, and may have resulted in harsher treatment for captured American troops. Those to me are valid objections to the torture, above and beyond the moral ones which make it unacceptable. Most of the time it doesn't work and produces unreliable and flat-out erroneous intelligence as strangely enough, people will make things up with amazing virtuosity to get the pain to stop.
I'm wondering what the effect is outside the US if these crimes are forever swept under the rug because it's politically expedient to ignore them, in particular in the Muslim world. Does investigation/prosecution send a message of moral strength or moral weakness--i.e., we are too weak to do the nasty bloody things that terrorists who are willing to die for their cause probably look on as nothing. Where does the rule of law come in, and leading by example and so forth? Is it effective or ineffective to hold the concept of a Gitmo over the heads of those who see us as mortal enemies?
I'm very confused on this issue, because politically for all the reasons cited above my gut wants Obama to ignore this for now, but morally I think there should be a full investigation of the counterproductive formerly illegal and inept interrogation techniques used to obtain information that invalidated many cases of known offenders from being brought to trail, and that served as recruiting posters for Al Queda, and may have resulted in harsher treatment for captured American troops. Those to me are valid objections to the torture, above and beyond the moral ones which make it unacceptable. Most of the time it doesn't work and produces unreliable and flat-out erroneous intelligence as strangely enough, people will make things up with amazing virtuosity to get the pain to stop.
I'm wondering what the effect is outside the US if these crimes are forever swept under the rug because it's politically expedient to ignore them, in particular in the Muslim world. Does investigation/prosecution send a message of moral strength or moral weakness--i.e., we are too weak to do the nasty bloody things that terrorists who are willing to die for their cause probably look on as nothing. Where does the rule of law come in, and leading by example and so forth? Is it effective or ineffective to hold the concept of a Gitmo over the heads of those who see us as mortal enemies?
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834