Buzz, thanks for making my point.
There exists a range of conduct that can be declared "torture" depending upon time, location, culture, circumstances, and moral standards. I submit every society at different times and locations will take a big sharpie and draw a line through the continuum and declare the boundary of civilized behavior. Japan's behavior during the run up to WWII implied a line drawn pretty low in the continuum. America's behaviors in some of the more vicious battle of the Pacific war drew the line well-above Japan's but well below where we want to draw the line today.
The battle here and elsewhere seems to be ignoring the continuum and the line. We seem to be fixated on determining whether an action is or ain't acceptable UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. Reality is the line will move up and down the continuum based on circumstances. For instance, we may think waterboarding is unacceptable in our current circumstances. The discussion will no doubt be considerably different when we see several Beslan's in progress on the tube or when we've lost a few cities. One could say we've evolved since <insert time or event of choice>. My response is we can adopt a lower line through the continuum only because we are not in desperate straits. We can afford lofty rhetoric now. Will we use the same rhetoric when it dawns on us that we are in a fight to the death.
There exists a range of conduct that can be declared "torture" depending upon time, location, culture, circumstances, and moral standards. I submit every society at different times and locations will take a big sharpie and draw a line through the continuum and declare the boundary of civilized behavior. Japan's behavior during the run up to WWII implied a line drawn pretty low in the continuum. America's behaviors in some of the more vicious battle of the Pacific war drew the line well-above Japan's but well below where we want to draw the line today.
The battle here and elsewhere seems to be ignoring the continuum and the line. We seem to be fixated on determining whether an action is or ain't acceptable UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. Reality is the line will move up and down the continuum based on circumstances. For instance, we may think waterboarding is unacceptable in our current circumstances. The discussion will no doubt be considerably different when we see several Beslan's in progress on the tube or when we've lost a few cities. One could say we've evolved since <insert time or event of choice>. My response is we can adopt a lower line through the continuum only because we are not in desperate straits. We can afford lofty rhetoric now. Will we use the same rhetoric when it dawns on us that we are in a fight to the death.