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Torture: Its not about efficacy or about morality. Its about narrow self interest, its about reciprocity.
The effort by Cheney and other apologists for Bush/Cheney to put forth the acceptance of torture on the grounds of producing actionable intelligence is not only factually wrong, its off the point.
The perception that we should not torture on higher moral grounds is welcomed but also not historically the true reason that torture was the focus of treaty and enforcement by the International Committee for the Red Cross.
The case for the Geneva Conventions was made, not on the basis of a superior moral standing, but on the basis that we did not want the same treatment on our own troops . The problem with arguing a purely moral position is that you can devolve into theoretical situations where the torture of a single person could be morally justified to save a city.
The historical reason that there has been broad support against torture in the United States and that it has always received strong support by the military is that it is the only way to achieve better treatment of our own soldiers who are prisoners . If you accept that waterboarding, or other techniques, are legal and acceptable then you have to accept that they can be used against our own soldiers who become prisoners. Those on Fox and the Cheney followers that are arguing that they are acceptable techniques are saying that they would accept such treatment against our own troops in the future.
They would accept their own brothers and sisters, sons and daughters being subjected to the exact same treatment.
The question that should be asked over and over again is:
Why do they have so little concern for our troops that they are willing to allow our troops to be subjected to this kind of treatment, why do they accept that our troops can be waterboarded, that it is an acceptable and legal action against our own soldiers? If we accept it as legal then we cannot object to it being used against us.
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