Torture

[erikred]

The article is a month old, and yet bears revisiting.

There are ways to win wars. There are ways to defeat insurgencies. There are ways to get information, and there are ways to discover secrets.

Chaining people up, beating them, denying them water-- these are not methods conducive to any of the abovementioned goals. Oh, sure, in the short term they may yield some limited results, but in the long term they're utterly self-defeating.

Let's get this straight: we did not bring 9/11 on ourselves, and we are not inviting further terror and reprisals through our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. What we are doing, when we engage in torture and murder like this, is losing the war. All moral arguments aside, this is self-defeating. We can do better than this. It will require more work, more dedication, and more effort, but we can do better than this.

Comments

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

we are not inviting further terror and reprisals through our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I so wish that this were true. But I think, unfortunately, that every civilian we kill motivates more to join the "insurgents".

When we engage in torture and murder, what we are doing is not only self-defeating, but further endangering our own troops, who will now be targeted for the same kinds of treatment. After all, if we don't follow Geneva, why should our enemies do so?

Would you like the Friedman delivered somewhere instead? or dropped in the mail?

[erikred.livejournal.com]

I so wish that this were true. But I think, unfortunately, that every civilian we kill motivates more to join the "insurgents".

This statement and mine are not mutually exclusive. I'm saying that our actions do not justify further acts of terror and reprisals. We're losing the war because actions like this, as you rightly pointed out, drive people to join the insurgents.

See? Total agreement. :)

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

I misunderstood your original statement, then. :-) And yes, we have an accord. :-)