I apologise 16 Blades, I get hot under the collar when I hear these opinions because the behaviour of the people concerned is a very serious matter which prejudices the success of the war.
As some others have alluded to, quite correctly in my opinion, we have to create the conditions in Iraq where Arabs have the option of "Just saying No" to insurgency. There self esteem is already damaged and they resent us. We make it worse for ourselves by making it more difficult for them to support our activities.
That is why it is imperative that we treat them well as prisoners and avoid playing into the hands of fundamentalist propagandists. That is why Al Grhaib, Guantanamo, torture and so on our counter productive. They give the Arabs more reasons to hate us, which makes it more difficult to win.
As for my point about condonation, the CO is on trial for it, and the evidence must be pretty substantial to take such a step.
I agree and understand Maple, however to paraphrase Mrs Beeton: "First catch your insurgent". We have no way of knowing at the time whether the people we have stopped are insurgents or not, and every innocent bloke who gets roughened up is going to sing long and loud to his friends and family back home about his treatment. I'm a fan of the old kill em with kindness routine.
As for the "ends justify the means" argument. This relates to philosophy before the enlightenment in about 1700 or so. Humans were supposed to be on earth to do God's will, whatever that was. The Jesuits pushed the "ends" argument on the basis that whatever they did was for a very good end - the glory of God, therefore everything was all right, no matter how twisted the means were.
With the enlightenment came humanism which basically said that human affairs can be perfected by the application of scientific methods, replacing the old mysticism of the Church. Humanism proposes that we can determine the truth ourselves by scientific method and argument We are thus free creatures and therefore not "means" that can be utilised to achieve "ends".
Then of course there is the utilitarianist use of the argument that says that one or more persons can be sacrificed to save 3000 people. This is the torturing the terrorist with the knowledge of the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
Unfortunately this falls down as well since the" means" we are talking about - torture, are in the immediate present, and the "ends" are in the future and may never be achieved. Often the "ends" are not what the Government states they are anyway.
It also falls down on the basis of what is the justification. Is it OK to torture one person to death in the hope of saving 3000? How about torturing ten to death including two innocents?
Exactly who is going to do the ghastly mathematics about torturing ten people witha probability of 80% that two of them are innocent and a probability of 50% that we can save 100 people? Sorry Sunshine, nobody gets to make such decisions.
Then of course their is the expereince of the entire 20th century that demonstrates that no government can be trusted with such powers for any reason because they lie to their own people.
Last edited by Sunfish; 26th May 2005 at 05:55.