Here are a few more online-only letters on the torture debate. Find others on tomorrow's editorial page and in Sunday Forum on Sunday.
As we continue the “Is torture OK?” debate, two questions come to mind. Our ex-vice president Darth Vader, oops Dick Cheney, says that if we knew what good intelligence we got from the “harsh interrogation techniques” (I say “torture”), use of such “techniques” would be widely accepted. Sounds to me just like the age-old “the end justifies the means” argument. I thought that this concept had been swept into the trash bin of philosophy long ago.
The other point is also worn out. Some argue that if one is following orders, the responsibility for one’s actions falls on the ones giving the orders. I think the post WWII war crimes trials answer this. The conclusion of the Nuremberg trials was that each individual is responsible for his or her own actions and that “My boss said it was OK” does not fly.
Dan DiPerna
Raleigh
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Regarding the April 23 article “Advice may shield policymakers,” the severity and persistence of our CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” make it impossible to just shake our heads in disgust and put it all behind us. We now have the concrete evidence that the U.S .was torturing prisoners while President Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were denying that very charge.
I’m sure Republicans and Democrats alike are sickened and ashamed that our great country resorted to such inhumane actions. I understand President Obama’s desire to look ahead, and he has been dealing brilliantly with a tidal wave of problems not of his own making, but we don’t have to look too far back to remember our punishment for Japanese soldiers who used waterboarding on U.S. prisoners. The phrase, “We were just following orders” was not considered a valid excuse, and those soldiers went to prison. Officers with more authority were executed.
Why should U.S. policymakers not have to face similar justice? Cheney’s claim that we gained valuable information from these methods is simply impossible to defend. Multiple studies have concluded that any information given under torture cannot be considered valid, and it increases the likelihood that our own captured soldiers will be subjected to the same treatment. There must be consequences for the Bush administration’s blatant disregard of the Geneva Conventions, human rights and world opinion.
George Johnson
Clayton
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On April 22, Gwynne Dyer, an “independent journalist” in London, managed to get almost a half-page of your paper to claim that we sentenced Japanese officers to imprisonment and hanging for waterboarding our POWs. Yet history books I’ve read about this subject mention that 33 precent of our POWs died in Japanese hands, most of them from real torture, not waterboarding. If “water cure” was mentioned in the charges at all (I doubt Dyer read any of them) it was almost certainly in conjunction with vastly more serious charges.
Knox Schroeder
Apex
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Do you remember President Jimmy Carter? Do you remember the Church Commission? Do you remember disassembling the CIA in the seventies? Do you remember Sept. 11, 2001? Do you remember the 9/11 commission’s findings saying that we did not have sufficient human resources (spies) available who might have provided the intelligence needed to have prevented this terrorist attack?
Do you remember the murderous individuals who perpetrated that attack? Do you really feel bad about the way we gathered information, from their ilk, to enable us to prevent a future attack? After the way that these terrorists treat people and cutting off heads, etc, and do you really feel that we are the ones who have lost our moral bearings?
Are you aware that the previous administration did what it felt that it had to do to prevent any further attacks on this country? Has it occurred to you that many of our citizens might not be alive today were it not for the efforts of the previous administration in keeping the terrorists at bay and away from our shores?
So how do we thank those individuals who have kept us safe?
Why, of course, we “get Bush” and drag his people, who were responsible for our safety all those years, before congressional hearings. How sweet it is to be the winning team!
I can only think of a remark made by another former president, “Here we go again.” God help us!
Paul Kretzschmar
Raleigh
Comments
Torture
Thu, 06/11/2009 - 01:00 — WayneSpencerThe fact that we recently have used torture is bad enough. But that we are even having this discussion about torture is an indictment of our country. Yes sir, Water boarding is torture. It was once called "Chinese Water Torture" and was banned centuries ago. To give a more accurate name for water boarding is drowning. The only difference is that it is stopped at the point of loss of consciousness. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution bans torture. The Geneva Convention which we are a party bans torture. Incidentally as a treaty, the Geneva Convention is a part of our Constitution. There are not two sides to torture.. it is WRONG and ILLEGAL.
But these are the two sides:
Sat, 04/25/2009 - 07:07 — jul210sThe social contract, as set forth by the enlightment categories, states that LAW will rule our interactions in the community.
But SOVEREIGNTY, the realm of the sacred and the sacrifice, lies within the province of the King and/or State. So this is the category under which "torture" falls.
So you have a double-bind: if you say it is unlawful to torture, you are really saying nothing but in the common quotidian nature of society it is not permitted; however, if you say the sovereignty (to which we have all sworn allegiance and is required for new citizenship), cannot use the sacrifice, then you are close to sedition and disloyalty. So you have a double-bind. The two cannot meet. The Christians, however, have an out, but it may cost them death; in that, they say their allegiance, and this non-allegiance cost Jesus his death, is only to God. So they cannot, on the other hand, comment on the categories outside their own singular one.
Pirates
Sat, 04/25/2009 - 07:01 — jul210sThe myth of minority in America is the prime cause of many injustices (one injustice contains the seed of murder, by the way). The scriptures say 13, as in Jewish tradition, is the age of majority (and I believe New Mexico holds with this commonsense). But to hold to the definition of minority as it was formulated in an 18th century agrarian society, largely ignorant and uneducated and not having the resources to amend either) is criminal omission. States have different ages, so that crime in one is not crime in another. This is the chaos of America. But in an society where electronics have made adults of children sometimes at 11, to hold to silly age of majorities is itself criminal and allows politicians to often wade through blood for their thrones. But, here's the thing, Pirates by Roman law that passed into European law, are among the common enemies of mankind and are to be killed on the spot. That is still true. Nonsense right and left is flying around about this.
This is ridiculous.....
Fri, 04/24/2009 - 20:09 — tarheelskierIn no way is waterboarding torture. It does not hurt, it just absolutely scares the ____ out of you. Not one of these enhanced interrogation techniques even resembles torture. What does resemble torture is infanticide, the killing of an innocent human life after birth, which the new moral authority of the world voted in favor of. Which one is worse, the killing of innocent AMERICANS or the scaring of terrorists who have information regarding the safety of people in the US. I mean these same people arguing against what they call "torture" were the ones applauding Obama on a job well done when he ordered the KILLING of three Somali teenagers to save ONE life. What???????? Hes a joke, the dems are a joke...... they have no clue.