Does the end justify the means?

[Bill Blue]

A couple of weeks ago, there was a clip playing on the news of a guy robbing a convenience store, explaining he was out of work, broke and had to feed his daughter. Most people do not accept this as a valid excuse to commit armed robbery.

Currently, the debate on the tube is about the need to torture in order to protect ourselves. Some (and this is not a clear cut right/left thing so lets keep it apolitical), say we need to violate national and international law in order to protect ourselves from attack. Well, not in those words, but that what it comes down to. They just say "We need to do this and we shouldn't be talking about it". Isn't this the same explanation that was offered up by the robber? How can we deny this principle on a personal level and accept it on a national level?

Bill

 

[mikephillips]

That's a question we as a nation will never have a consesus on. Should the government's primary purpose be to protect it's citizens at any cost or should it allow the possibility of deaths it might otherwise prevent. While I'm not a coddle terrorist types person I can't but think that one of the things that led to the formation of the nation was the desire to be different from the rest of the world, the "better a guilty man goes free than an innocent man suffers sort of thing", don't recall who that one is attributed to offhand.
The Nuremberg and Dachau trials come to mind as part of that American philosophy. We all knew that the the top surviving Nazis and SS were guilty of crimes against humanity but we and the British pushed the rest of the world to take the chance they could be aquitted by holding court trials to show we were in fact trying to live up to higher principles.
If we become like the regimes we supposedly oppose, then how can we expect to occupy the moral high ground and lead the rest of the world.

 

[Ron67Alpine]

"A thief is shot, in the night. Who's hand is on the bow?"
My answer is the thief is the only responsible party.
Anyone that chooses to place themselves in a situation, that can cause them harm, is responsible for their own actions.

 

[Series6]

If one is willing to hurt many to further a violent agenda he believes in, is it not fair that the many have the right to protect themselves and to act to prevent the loss of unrelated and innocent lives?

If you knew a person was in danger, would it not be reasonable to act in defence of that person to the degree that a "reasonable man" would determine that threat? There are many possibilities. If the threat was in evidence, one could call the police to investigate and if the threat was unfounded or misunderstood, at least your intent was clear and you may have prevented an escalation. If you witness an act of violence against a person unable to protect or defend themselves is there an implied responsibility to engage to your best ability to assist or prevent further harm? If all you can do is call law enforcement then that's the best you can do. If you have experience and can intercede on behalf of the victim to the degree necessary to prevent further injury, wouldn't that pass the reasonable man question?

We have lots of disagreement here to define the purpose of government. I believe it is the primary purpose of government to protect the citizenry. To allow the people of that nation to pursue Life, Liberty and all the rest. If it is the avowed intent of a hostile element to hurt the citizens of a nation, I believe it is the duty and obligation of that government to act with the appropriate level of force to prevent that from happening.

When dealing with an uncivilized element willing to inflict harm on people unrelated to the issue, the only reasonable thing for a government to do is prevention. No matter your opinion of what happened on 9/11, I think we all asked if there was something that could have been done to prevent the loss of so many innocent lives and the lives effected by those who died. Taking premptive action is like taking a vacine to prevent a disease. I am not a vigilante nor do I support that type of terrorism. We should not be a vigilante nation. But we should be vigilant.

The questions you have to ask yourself are, if you could prevent violence against a child, a woman or any other person, what would you be willing to do? Some of us are old enough to remember the case of a young woman in New York City back in the early 60's who was repeatedly attacked on a street. The attack was heard and witnessed by many people but no one wanted to get involved. The woman finally died on the street of her injuries. What kind of people were they? What would you be willing to do? Call the cops? Run downstairs with your baseball bat or another weapon? Render first response until help arrived? If you knew the woman and knew she had to walk down a street, would you offer to escort her?

If you could prevent the death of thousands, by dealing with an avowed supporter of terrorism in a manner well below the manner in which they deal with hostages (remember Daniel Pearl) would you approve of that? Terrorists and pirates need to be dealt with in terms they understand. Acting in a civilized manner with the uncivilized is wasted effort. They take their best shot at us, and we take measured response? Phoey! You respond with overwhelming directed force and set a precidence. If I could prevent harm to innocent people (you pick the nationality, gender, race) by scaring a bad guy into thinking he's about to drown, give me a bucket... When he complains later, you can tell him at least he kept his head.

Ok. Call me a nut. I may not have conveyed in a clear manner. This is an emotional subject for me as people close to me have been hurt by random violence and were not prepared or able to protect themselves. I take this very seriously.

 

[V6 JOSE]

If all that the prisoner suffers is the feeling that he's drowning, then are we really low class or have left our moral high ground?? I can see if we were to decapitate and kill them or maim them or even leave marks or scars, but when all they suffer is getting their hair wet, come on. These terrorists would as soon kill all of us, in the most painful way they could, and we are going to say that what has been done to them is equivalent? Someone isn't thinking clearly.

There were several terrorist leaders that were caught, and some attacks were avoided because of tough interrogations, and you would say that it would have been better to lose several hundred citizens in an attack, than to use tough interrogation?? I just can't understand. I can't get my mind arround it. What if some of the casualties of such an attack were your family? Mother, father, wife, son or daughter?

It all sounds real inspiring to say, "We are better than that." "We have the moral high ground, while we bury our loved ones, "In the ground".

I have even suggested coating all our ammunition with Pork fat, to dissuade them from wanting to fight, but I have been called insensitive to their religion. I would rather have them not fight because they think they will go straight to hell if killed by one of our special rounds, than to continue to fight with our hands tied behind our backs.

I will not judge anyone for their beliefs, so please don't judge me. I just can't stand by and not speak up, when I think something is wrong. We will lose this battle, because they think we are weak because of how we think. They will continue until they wear us down, because we believe that it is wrong to defend ourselves. We will not fight to keep our freedom. We don't have the guts anymore.

Jose

 

[Bill Blue]

You guys seem to be missing my point, which means I didn't do a good job the first time. So I'll try again.

Our laws, and international law say that water boarding is illegal. Call it what you will, it is illegal. If we can ignore our law because it might save 1,000 lives, doesn't that mean that every time someone breaks any law, we have to examine the circumstances that prompted that person to violate the law? If not, why not? Where do we draw the line?

Bill

 

[Jim E]

Right now the line is power and money

 

[Series6]

Bill,

I understand the dilema. We live in a world of law. Fine. I agree. When we are confronted by those who don't respect the law, any law, and chose to live outside the law, there is no choice but to deal with them on terms they dictate.

Their methods devaluate any legitimate issues they may have.

Your point is well taken. It would be wonderful if everyone respected law and life. If man could deal with man logically and fairly.

 

[mikel]

In today’s America the guy with the gun robbing a C store had other options. We all know if not family, then church or the shelter would feed us. That was an error in judgment. And there is a big difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is where I don’t know any better, stupid is I know but don’t care to do the right thing. Sadly the guy broke the law. And if we do not uphold the law what lessons are we teaching his children and mine.

Considering that we are not dealing with worldly or morally educated people water boarding to save innocent lives seems just. They as a lawless group attacked the citizens of a nation. A totally different scenario from the C store robbery.

I just heard a report that the current Administration is looking in to going after the White House lawyer Bybee who OKed water boarding as legal. So let’s see if I get it. Being that we declared a “War on Terror†it was deemed legal. And that being the case did the US consider it legal at the time?

 

[V6 JOSE]

First of all, water boarding isn't mentioned in the Geneva Convention articles. Secondly what is there is a list of things that the signers of the document at the time, thought constituted torture. To those on the liberal side, anything more than a poilte,"Would you please tell me all you know about terrorists plans to attack America", is torture. Do you think Sheik Whatever His Name Is, would have divulged the information he gave up, by just asking him politely?

Some think that playing hard rock loud for days on end, is torture. Some think anything less than three hots and a cot, are torture. I described before what I thought was torture. I definitely don't think water boarding is, because it doesn't hurt the body in any way.

What you are insinuating is that the Geneva Convention specifically mentions it and forbids it. That is incorrect. When you say that law forbids it, you are technically incorrect, but to make your case sound like it has real teeth, you say the whole world says it is. I and a lot of others are part of this world, and we don't agree, so you can't say that.

You could say that a lot of people in the world say that this is so. but don't state it as an actual fact, becauuse it isn't. You may want to follow someone else's ideas about it, but I don't. Torture , to me, is a long way from water boarding, and I don't see any logical reason to change that.

I believe we have a right to self protection, (Some people don't think so, because they think we Americans are the cause of them hating us and we are getting our just deserts.)), and this is just part of self protection.

Jose

 

[Rick Young]

There is a gentleman in Texas who flew in the Doolittle mission over Tokyo. He was captured by the Japanese and waterboarded. At the end of the war we tried and convicted his captors for war crimes. It is torture. Does it yield anything useful?
Rick

 

[Bill Blue]

Mikel, Jose, I think we have to take the laws we apply to others and use them as our standard, the post WWII trials being the gold standard. I grew up learning we do not mistreat prisoners, we are better than that. I think that is typical and I doubt many Americans thought torture was a part of the War On Terror.

Jose, here is the Geneva Convention language on torture. Please note it is not a list of things that constitute torture. Not even banging on your balls for a few hours with a small stick.
For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Bill

 

[mikel]

Bill,
Below is a small part of an article I copied from MSNBC.com Much of it I didn’t know.

Even George J. Tenet , the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding .
'Perfect storm of ignorance'
The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.[/I][/I]


I hope what we did was different than dunking a suspected witch, only to have her confess because she was drowning and than stone her to death.

I felt we should have tried the detainee’s held in Cuba. But, would that have been legal? Some of them were plucked from other countries? Was that legal? On the smiling young pirate (sadly an ignorant youth drugged up and recruited by a war lord) being brought to America for trial, for sure his defense team will question; where did the crime happen? And did the US towed him into international waters against his will.

It is a mud pit, step in to deep you loose a shoe. The only safe passage is to dry it up by shutting down the source. No water pun intended.

I’m ok with waterboarding if it was to save any country from danger.
Do we even know what was gleamed from the waterboarding and what action did we take on what was learned.

mikel

 

[mikephillips]

Some of what's complained about, like sleep deprivation, I don't consider torture. Many educational courses, like medicine or law require it to some degree. Where I have to start wondering is when the Justice Department decides that it's torture only if there's imminent threat of death. I suspect there's thousands, if not millions, of people in other counrties that have run a foul of their governments who would not agree with the line being drawn that far out. I'm all for protecting the lives and property of American citizens but we proclaim to the world that adhere to higher standards than the military and dictator run countries of the world. Failure to at least attempt to live up to our own standards causes us to be seen as hypocrites when we lecture others on their shortcomings.

 

[Bill Blue]

Mike, speaking of sleep deprivation in the medical field, how about over work and exhaustion? My wife works in the operating room in a small hospital. They are not large enough to have the O.R. staffed 24-7, so they have a call system. Sunday, she was called in at 4:45 A.M., got home at 10:30 P.M., went to work the following morning at 7:00 for the scheduled shift. She is still recovering from the physical exhaustion. The only thing that saves this from being torture is they were not trying get information from her, nor was it punishment for prior activities. We ask a lot from people sometimes, not having a clue what the personal impact may be.

Sorry to have high jacked my own thread.

Bill

 

[V6 JOSE]

Speaking of hipocrites, most of the nations in the world do what I call torture, including the ones that publicly decry water boarding as torture, but secretly and in some cases not so secretly, use torture. Most of the left leaning countries like Venezuela, Vietman, Burma, China, Russia, most countries in the north and central Africa, and including all of the Arab countries, use torture. I wouldn't doubt that even the more civilized countries, like France and other European countries do it. We just don't hear about it. It is only our country, that is considered a pariah by the press, that gets scrutinized to the extent we are. I don't even want to hear the word hipocrisy mentioned in this argument.

What it comes down to is, do you believe that America is a bad nation and most of the others are good, or do you believe that America most closely follows the principals it was founded on. there are no perfect nations on this planet, but I sincerely believe that America is the best and holds the highest standards in the world. I get tired of people who live in America, enjoy all it's benefits, then condemn it, because they want to appear politically correct to the rest of the world. I'm sorry, but you will never change my mind. I'm just glad that I'm an old man and don't expect to live long enough to see the destruction of this great country.

Jose

 

[mikephillips]

Jose, you're correct that much of the world secretly, or not so secretly practices the same or worse things. I'm not trying to suggest any they're right and we're always wrong way of viewing the issue. They very fact that we have this issue in the public to be discussed, and we can discuss it without fear says much about the good of the nation. What concerns me more is not the individual instances said to be used by specific people during interrogation, since they were doing what they were told passed the legal tests, but the legal parsing that determined you have to be causing a loss of life to be considered torture. At what point do you become that which you're opposed to?? It's said that no one knew that waterboarding was one of the things that some SS personnel were charged with as war crimes at the end of WW2. So in international law, right or wrong, it is torture and a crime.

 

[Armand4]

In response to the title-- "Does the End Justify the Means?"-- I say no. Robbing a convenience store is not the right way to feed your family, and acting like barbarians is not the way to win a war. Colin Powell said-- and this isn't a direct quote-- that the only way we can lose the War on Terror is to lose our way. If we can keep our moral bearings, America will remain, in John Winthrop's words, a shining city on a hill. If you want, you can say that the "moral high ground" is a silly social construct. But I think the moral high ground is exactly where we should be. The Glenn Beck-watching right-wingers who fret about our impending doom are barking up the wrong tree-- we should be worried about our moral compass, not panicking about socialism and fascism because we don't like our president.

I'm sick of hearing that being against torture, or voting for Obama, or feeling that some sort of government safety net should be in place, or not feeling contempt for immigrants means I don't love my country. I do. I love that I've had opportunities here I wouldn't have had anywhere else. I'm proud of my best friend, who is in Afghanistan as I type this. I'm proud of my ancestors on my mother's side, who arrived in the New World in 1656, signed the Declaration of Independence and fought to make our new nation stronger. I'm proud of my dad's side too; proud of my great-grandfather, who arrived from France in 1920 and built a new life for himself and always described himself as an American, despite his thick accent.

You can call me idealistic if you want. You can even call me young and naive; I'm only 25 years old, after all. But don't you dare tell me I don't love my country because I want to hold it to the standards it was founded on.

 

[Sownman]

Nobody robs a convenience store to feed their family. There are many charities/churches in any city that will feed the hungry. If you are unable
to pull that off then shoplifting at a grocery store is a lot easier than armed robbery. The excuse "feed my family" is BS

Regarding torture I see water boarding as miles from genital electrocution, burning with hot pokers, hanging by thumbs, skinning alive etc etc etc.

If my government can save my famililies life with loud music, cold cells, waterboarding etc then by all means please do so. One more way in which Obama proves himself incompetant. He'd rather make the left wing elitists happy than save American lives. You can not deal with murderers and terrorists by asking them to please not do it anymore.

 

[V6 JOSE]

Amen! and Amen!

Jose

Nobody robs a convenience store to feed their family. There are many charities/churches in any city that will feed the hungry. If you are unable
to pull that off then shoplifting at a grocery store is a lot easier than armed robbery. The excuse "feed my family" is BS

Regarding torture I see water boarding as miles from genital electrocution, burning with hot pokers, hanging by thumbs, skinning alive etc etc etc.

If my government can save my famililies life with loud music, cold cells, waterboarding etc then by all means please do so. One more way in which Obama proves himself incompetant. He'd rather make the left wing elitists happy than save American lives. You can not deal with murderers and terrorists by asking them to please not do it anymore.