Comments Posted By blackbelt_jones
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A PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON TORTURE WOULD SATISFY NO ONE
“Some disagree with casuistry and take an absolutist position on these moral questions. When it comes to matters of war and peace, we call such people pacifists. The critics of the CIA program are effectively arguing from a position of radical pacifism. Against pacifism stands just-war theory, which argues that society can prosecute war so long as it adheres to certain standards: discrimination and proportionality.”
Well, yes and no. Yes, pacifism stands against just war theory... but this definition of pacifism is nonsense.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pacifism
1. opposition to war or violence of any kind.
2. refusal to engage in military activity because of one's principles or beliefs.
3. the principle or policy that all differences among nations should be adjusted without recourse to war.Obviously, a person can be opposed to strapping down a powerless person and pouring water into his nose without meeting any of these requirements for being a pacifist, let alone a radical one. Pardon me, but THIS what you call torturing the language!
Maybe Sun Tzu had a point about the nation that is known for destroying it's enemies being rarely attacked-- but I'll bet the nation that is known for torturing prisoners is rarely surrendered to. Faced with the prospect of real or imagined torture, combatants, it seems to me, will choose to fight to the death. I mean, duh!
Sure, neither liberals nor conservatives will be satisfied with a presidential commision. Those guys are never satisfied by anything. It doesn't matter what anyone wants, the truth is what we need. Prosecution and punishment should only be meted out in the most heinous cases possible, and perhaps not all,but we need to know everything about what happened.
Comment Posted By blackbelt_jones On 30.08.2009 @ 21:55
