Post by bot on May 25, 2004 22:46:28 GMT -5
May 22, 2004
For George Bush, Torture Is a Question of Law, Not Morals
www.thousandreasons.org/opinion/052204.html
Investigators are working their way toward the top of the Bush administration in their attempts to place responsibility in its proper place. It is as yet unclear how far up the search will lead them, but one thing is already clear: the U. S. government, in its zeal to catch terrorists, showed an arrogant disregard for human rights. Beyond the search for culpability, however, lies an even more important and as yet unanswered question: how can an administration publicly dedicated to fighting evil allow itself to torture humans?
It is too soon to say definitively what led the Bush administration -- at least some significant part of it -- to torture Iraqis, but certain themes are emerging. Perhaps most important was their attempt to turn the argument about torture into a legal one rather than a moral one. The question of how best to obtain intelligence from prisoners became, What can we get away with? Would prisoners captured in Afghanistan be afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention? How far could we push international law, or can we evade it altogether? How much wiggle room can we get? How much pain and suffering can we inflict as we interrogate one prisoner after another? Can we deprive them of sleep? Can we hold them in awkward positions for three hours, two? Can we blast obnoxious music in their ears, heat their room uncomfortably? Just how much can we degrade another human being in our search for intelligence?
And not only did the Bush administration shift the question from what is right to what is legal, they hedged the legality. The Justice Department argued that Afghanistan was a "failed state" and that the Taliban and al-Quaida were an "intertwined terror group" rather than soldiers. They stretched the limits of the law.
Now that the truth is out, now that we know that this obscenity was not a random act but a matter of policy, we must insist, loudly, that the Bush administration receive the same punishment as any other torturer, who through upbringing or fate has failed to recognize the value of human life. Since they have failed to ask the proper questions -- which would have concerned the morality of torture -- they should now suffer the consequences, the legal ones.
Source
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040522/
ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prisoner_abuse_justice
For George Bush, Torture Is a Question of Law, Not Morals
www.thousandreasons.org/opinion/052204.html
Investigators are working their way toward the top of the Bush administration in their attempts to place responsibility in its proper place. It is as yet unclear how far up the search will lead them, but one thing is already clear: the U. S. government, in its zeal to catch terrorists, showed an arrogant disregard for human rights. Beyond the search for culpability, however, lies an even more important and as yet unanswered question: how can an administration publicly dedicated to fighting evil allow itself to torture humans?
It is too soon to say definitively what led the Bush administration -- at least some significant part of it -- to torture Iraqis, but certain themes are emerging. Perhaps most important was their attempt to turn the argument about torture into a legal one rather than a moral one. The question of how best to obtain intelligence from prisoners became, What can we get away with? Would prisoners captured in Afghanistan be afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention? How far could we push international law, or can we evade it altogether? How much wiggle room can we get? How much pain and suffering can we inflict as we interrogate one prisoner after another? Can we deprive them of sleep? Can we hold them in awkward positions for three hours, two? Can we blast obnoxious music in their ears, heat their room uncomfortably? Just how much can we degrade another human being in our search for intelligence?
And not only did the Bush administration shift the question from what is right to what is legal, they hedged the legality. The Justice Department argued that Afghanistan was a "failed state" and that the Taliban and al-Quaida were an "intertwined terror group" rather than soldiers. They stretched the limits of the law.
Now that the truth is out, now that we know that this obscenity was not a random act but a matter of policy, we must insist, loudly, that the Bush administration receive the same punishment as any other torturer, who through upbringing or fate has failed to recognize the value of human life. Since they have failed to ask the proper questions -- which would have concerned the morality of torture -- they should now suffer the consequences, the legal ones.
Source
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040522/
ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prisoner_abuse_justice