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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (49777)	2/19/2008 6:15:11 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 543227

>>I think the difference of opinion about waterboarding is just a matter of some people trying to rationalize and justify their own bad judgment. I don't. More importantly I think its best to be reluctant to assume bad faith in the other side. Even truly bad people often believe what they are doing is good. If it really is bad, than that fact might not count for a lot in the end, but it might usefully inform your response to them and those who think like them.<< Tim - I am quite sure that the people who have authorized the torture of prisoners, by waterboarding and other means, and those who are now defending the fact that they did so, believed that what they were doing was good. In rationalizing and justifying their behavior, they undoubtedly continue to believe that they are doing good things. None of that changes what they did, which was to torture people, or condone the use of torture, authorize it, or defend it after the fact. I am of the opinion that it is wrong to torture captives. >>If its legitimate now it didn't become so but was always so. Someone proposing it is legitimate would either have to point out some difference between than and now, or claim that the convictions, to the extent that they where specifically and only for waterboarding, where a mistake.<< As far as I know, nobody has pointed out any legitimate differences or called the convictions of Japanese officers into question. They have just tried to narrow the definition of torture so that it no longer fits the acts they are responsible for. - Allen