{"id":48867,"date":"2014-12-10T22:17:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T05:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/so-one-last-probably-not-word-on-torture.html"},"modified":"2014-12-12T09:20:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T16:20:17","slug":"so-one-last-probably-not-word-on-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/so-one-last-probably-not-word-on-torture.html","title":{"rendered":"So one last (probably not) word on torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

And last(ish) because you're probably sick to death about reading it from me, and I'm sick to death (and at heart) about writing about it. Because today I've not only been posting the stuff I have, I've been on a half-dozen other threads in the comments, arguing with people who see nothing wrong about this — who very baldly say, "I allow my elected officials to do whatever they think they need to in order to keep this country secure. And if that means we are a country that is hated and feared, that's ultimately the only way for us to survive."<\/p>\n

And I keep coming back to that Abby Mann quote, "But survival as what?"<\/i><\/p>\n

So read the below, please. George's preface holds what I believe in my head to be the case for how to deal with that ticking bomb \/ existential thread danger that the pro-torture folk use. He puts it at least as well as I ever have managed to. Do what you need to do, knowing that you're breaking the law and will be punished.<\/i> Because if the stakes are that high and you're really a "hero," that's what you do.<\/p>\n

And then read the Jim Wright post below it. Because it says everything else I think and feel<\/i> on the subject, and rather than getting into long arguments on the matter I should simply post a link to that, because if it's not convincing then nothing I can say will be. Read it.<\/i><\/p>\n

And to all a good night.<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +George Wiman<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It always comes down to that ticking bomb, doesn't it. What if your son or daughter were in that city!<\/p>\n

That person you have shacked to the chair is someone's son or daughter, too. Lose sight of that, and you become something else entirely. But OK, for the sake of argument…<\/p>\n

#Torture<\/a> is a "You had better be right" situation. You torture someone and you don't find the bomb\/terror cell\/innocent kidnapped daughter? You should accept your punishment.<\/p>\n

Suppose it "worked", though? You got the information, saved the city, saved the innocent child, whatever? <\/p>\n

You would certainly be willing to die to save a city, no? Would you go to prison to save a city? Would saving the city be enough, if you weren't also feted as a hero? Perhaps punished for torturing someone?<\/p>\n

And in such a case, perhaps the President would grant you clemency. A pardon. But would you refuse to save the city otherwise? Would you let all those people die because something "unfair" might happen to you?<\/p>\n

The legal prohibition against torture (the one you are violating in your Jack Bauer fantasy) is there to keep the city, and the country, worth saving. This is why it really doesn't matter if torture "works" or not.<\/p>\n

Gratifying to read, here, an experienced military officer who says something similar to what I've always thought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nThe Road to Hell<\/a><\/span>
\nThe evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. – William Shakespeare It’s even worse than we thought. It is, isn’t it? If you’ve read the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence’s Study of…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And last(ish) because you're probably sick to death about reading it from me, and I'm sick to death (and at heart) about writing about it. Because today I've not only been posting the stuff I have, I've been on a half-dozen other threads in the comments, arguing with people who see nothing wrong about this … Continue reading “So one last (probably not) word on torture”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,350,715,17,380,71],"tags":[777],"class_list":["post-48867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-civil-liberties","category-crime-punishment","category-homeland-security","category-nationalism-exceptionalism","category-religion-me","tag-torture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12040,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/05\/well_thisll_cut_down_on_a.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":0},"title":"Well, this’ll cut down on all the damn furriners around here!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Dec-07 9:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"The US has long stood as a shining beacon for refugees from around the world, fleeing tyranny and torture and death.\u00a0 While some have grumble about people exploiting the system,...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14651,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/28\/unblogged-bits-for-tuesday-28-april-2009.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Tuesday, 28 April 2009","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Apr-09 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Your plan for the (probably not) coming apocalypse - Yeah, I am going to have to do one of these posts. Though I suspect I will not be nearly as survivable as Doyce &\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43310,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/30\/because-torture-is-necessary-for-national-security.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":2},"title":"Because torture is necessary for national security!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Jun-14 10:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Except, y'know, where folk are actually concerned about the truth. \"Torture has corrupted everything in the military commissions. It touches everything: pretrial confinement, tainted interrogations, the reliability of witness statements, and ultimately whether or not the United States can sentence Mr al Baluchi to death,\" Connell said in a statement.But...\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48928,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/14\/truth-in-quoting-sometimes-hurts-but-not-tortuously.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":3},"title":"Truth in Quoting sometimes hurts (but not tortuously)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 14-Dec-14 10:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I had retweeted to me this little bit (https:\/\/twitter.com\/P0TUS\/status\/544252013773848577), a quotation from George Washington to \"the Northern Expeditionary Force\":\"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43792,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/23\/we-shouldnt-torture-people-to-death.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":4},"title":"We shouldn't torture people to death","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 23-Jul-14 6:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I mean, doesn't that go without saying? \u00a0Yet in the comments to the Breaking News story below, it was all \"Woo-hoo!\" and \"Let 'im suffer!\" and \"Karma, baby!\"And, my favorite, \"If he didn't care about the person he killed, why should we care about his suffering during execution?\"Really? \u00a0_Really?_ Because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33308,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/21\/who-wouldnt-use-torture-on-this-punk.html","url_meta":{"origin":48867,"position":5},"title":""Who Wouldn't Use Torture On This Punk?"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 21-Apr-13 12:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Um ... me?I mean, this isn't anywhere close to the \"ticking time bomb\" \"Twenty-Four Hours\" type of scenario that torture fetishists love\u00a0to use to justifiy legal protection for twisting arms and applying thumbscrews. \"What if Hasim was the only one who knew where the atomic bomb was that was going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48892,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48867\/revisions\/48892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}