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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Lane3 who wrote (5377)11/16/2005 10:11:39 AM
From: Dale Baker  Read Replies (3) of 543145
 
To continue with an economist's view on torture, a simple cost/benefit analysis for the torturer and the victim ignores some major indirect costs for a superpower like the US.

If we say that torture should be illegal yet we find ways to do it when necessary, we pay a huge price in credibility. Why should anyone believe our firm, principled stands on any dimension of human rights if we selectively ignore our own so-called principles?

One of the huge dangers of the last four years has been the attitude, we will maintain the highest American ideals except when we think we can't afford to.

That's not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. They wanted an end to arbitrary executive power and action, not enshrining it in ongoing policies, IMHO.

A second cost is increasing the motivation and willingness of potential terrorists to want to inflict pain on us when they see the American government openly practicing torture.

A third cost is losing the active support of our allies (such as they are) if they don't agree on our selective use of torture. Breaking the rules in a unilateral fashion pushes us deeper and deeper into unilateralism by default. So we end up with Samoa in the coalition of the willing and China telling Bush to take a hike when he criticizes their lack of democracy.

And so on and so on....
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