Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
A. I don't doubt that many people think torturing people is wrong. But if the details of what we are doing to people were widespread, there would be revulsion. Which is why all the other evidence of what happened at Abu Ghraib has never been released. If it was going to strengthen the Administration's hand, is there any doubt in your mind that they'd have gotten it out there? That stuff is poison.
B. Bull. Shit. Bush doesn't give a flying fuck what his "political enemies" are "brandishing." Nor does he give a shit about what "the global community" thinks. For better or worse -- worse, if you ask me, better if you ask Slave -- Bush understands that what people think is not a constraint on him. As long as Republicans on the Hill are unwilling to break with him -- in actions, not words -- he can keep doing whatever the Hell he wants, and he knows it. And particularly with torture, he takes the position that he doesn't need Congress's permission or approval, and for most of the past six years Congress has been all to happy to ignore it. Now Congress is having a hard time just getting information out of the Executive Branch.
C. (1) Torture is wrong. That's not a matter of politics -- that's just fundamental. I can't believe the so-called Christians who are happy to give the President a blank check. Their beliefs have precious little to do with Jesus of Nazareth.
(2) We don't "have" to torture anyone to fight this war. We choose to. People who defend the use of torture would rather talk about far-fetched ticking-bomb scenarios from 24 than about the uncontroverted fact that most of the people tortured at Abu Ghraib weren't terrorists. It's about their fantasies and fears and posing, not about the real world.
D. Explain to me how CIA torture in Latin America protects our way of life. This is because Nicaraguan hordes were going to be marching across the Rio Grande? If you believe that, then you can believe the Slave/Hank line that if we don't torture people we'll all be living under Sharia.
E. If torture becomes part of "our way of life," what's left?
F. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36.
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I relabeled your paragraphs above for this response:
A. Most people would not be repulsed. Remember that big red area in the middle? They'd applaud it. Bush can't release it because the international reaction would be awful, and even he knows that the most agressive elements of our culture are better kept under wraps.
B. Yes he does. He's boxed in, as I explained before. I'm not doing a "yes he is" v. "no he isn't" thing with you.
C. If Shiekh Muhammed who planned 9/11 is being tortured to get info on other plots, please tell me how that is "wrong." If we save lives by making his temporarily horrific, how is that wrong? You don't know that we don't need to toture anyone. You're saying that, but there's no way you could ever prove that. I can't debate that. It's not an argument. You're crowning yourself omniscient there.
D. Maybe it doesn't. I offered it as an example of how commonly we use the practice. Can you offer me an example of how it hasn't protected our way of life? Again, how do you know? Do you have access to those secret files in Langley?
E. The same thing we had left yesterday. We've ben doing it forever and we'll do it forever. So there's some transparanecy about the prevalence of its use. That's a good thing, no?
F. Why would you quote me religious text? I assume that's a joke.
