Made in Viet Nam?

[Len Budney]

I have a suggestion: buy cheap foreign products--and spend the money you save on ammo. 

--Len.

[Laurent du Var]

I wonder if it was not easier for some people to
accept old enemies than  new ungratefull betrayers ?

Talk about freedom toast...

>>I remember once during the 2000 election campaign IIRC, John McCain referring to his captors at the Hanoi Hilton as "Gooks". Some people started to make a big deal out of his "racist" comment. He earned the right to call them anything he wanted, just as you have earned the right to feel the way you do.<<

I wonder where McCain earned his right to do just that and what was his business in Vietnam again ? He could be just dead as a doornail like the other 50000 young men who trusted their gouvernment to do the right thing.

[Len Budney]

I wonder where McCain earned his right to do just that...

He was a POW. You gotta cut at least some slack to a guy when he refers to his former captors and torturers unkindly.

--Len.

[Perd Hapley]

Does anybody else remember when McCain said that using torture would give our enemies excuses to torture Americans?  It was just a few weeks ago; I don't remember where.  Is that not a colossally stupid remark, coming from someone who has already been tortured?  Long before our current actions in GITMO or Abu Graib? 

Do we cut him some slack for that one?   

[Len Budney]

Does anybody else remember when McCain said that using torture would give our enemies excuses to torture Americans? ... Do we cut him some slack for that one?   

In that case, as far as I can see, he's right: when enemies torture Americans, the first thing they'll say in their own defense is that Americans torture them. It's a good argument against using torture, aside from the fact that it doesn't produce reliable intel and is just plain immoral.

--Len.

[Perd Hapley]

So they won't torture Americans unless they have a good excuse?  That just doesn't wash.  Whatever one's view of torture, it is not a good argument.  It is somewhat like expecting a violent criminal to be intimidated by gun control laws. 

I'm not arguing for torture, here, just weeding out a weak argument for the anti-torture position. 

[Joe Demko]

If Vietnam has unpleasant associations for you, then no, you aren't wrong in not wanting to own a Vietnamese-made product.

[Len Budney]

So they won't torture Americans unless they have a good excuse?  That just doesn't wash.

Nobody said that. He said that using torture gives them a good excuse. Turned around, it means that we don't have credible moral standing to complain about torture: they're only doing to our guys the same sorts of things we do to theirs. It might also increase their use of torture, as a retaliation, but the real point here is that by embracing torture we elevate it to a legitimate tactic, about which we have no right to complain.

--Len.

[Perd Hapley]

But Islamic militant groups don't care about who claims the moral high ground, or whether we torture anyone else. 

[Paddy]

But Islamic militant groups don't care about who claims the moral high ground, or whether we torture anyone else. 

Don't try to figure it out.  Len's simply looking for yet another excuse to trash the U.S. while speaking from the lofty tower of moral authoritarianism.  IOW, he wants the rule of anarchistic 'law' imposed on everyone else.

[Creeping Incrementalism]

He said that using torture gives them a good excuse. Turned around, it means that we don't have credible moral standing to complain about torture: they're only doing to our guys the same sorts of things we do to theirs. It might also increase their use of torture, as a retaliation, but the real point here is that by embracing torture we elevate it to a legitimate tactic, about which we have no right to complain.

No, that's not the way it works.  It has always been accepted to break various humanitarian laws of war if the other side breaks them first.  For example, during WWI, the Germans sent a letter to the U.S. declaring that they would execute any prisoners taken with buckshot, on the premise that it was expanding ammo/designed to cause excessive pain.  The U.S. response gave a reason why that was bunk, and as retaliantion, said it would start executing German prisoners if the Germans did so to ours first.

Islamists will always torture Americans to the maximum degree, and make a video of it, whatever we do.  The main problem is that the rest of the world holds a double standard: they won't say a thing if terrorists to torture Americans, but if Americans do it back, they condemn us as loudly as they can.

For those who say torture doesn't provide good intel--that's lame excuse as to why we shouldn't use torture by people who don't beleive we should use it under any circumstances.  After Hezbollah captured the CIA station chief in Lebanon in the 80s, suddenly every single agent working for him dissappeared (either captured or fled).  And why would it be that we get intel out of the hardcase terrorists, not when sitting in U.S. prisons, but only when they happen to sit in the prisons of our allies that use torture?  The premise that torture will only have the tortured give the interrogator what he wants to hear is bogus.  The interrogator knows this, and will keep up the torture until he gets a response that he believes.  And if it doesn't pan out, it is right back to the torture.

[Len Budney]

But Islamic militant groups don't care about who claims the moral high ground, or whether we torture anyone else. 

McCain's remarks aren't aimed at at the Muslims. They're aimed at American's and American allies. To restate the point crudely, if we torture Muslims then we deserve the torture we get when we fall into their hands. If a Gitmo interrogator falls into Muslim hands and they subject him to waterboarding and sleep deprivation, it's just desserts. So don't do it. That help?

--Len.

[Manedwolf]

But Islamic militant groups don't care about who claims the moral high ground, or whether we torture anyone else. 

McCain's remarks aren't aimed at at the Muslims. They're aimed at American's and American allies. To restate the point crudely, if we torture Muslims then we deserve the torture we get when we fall into their hands. If a Gitmo interrogator falls into Muslim hands and they subject him to waterboarding and sleep deprivation, it's just desserts. So don't do it. That help?

--Len.

They don't do that. They just behead.

[Len Budney]

They don't do that. They just behead.

That's the iffy part of McCain's remarks, and you're the first to raise it so far. It's not strictly true that they "just" behead: they do use hideous tortures first. But arguably, at least, waterboarding and hacking one's head off with a rusty butter knife are not comparable. In a broad sense it makes us "as bad as them," but given a choice between the two I'd definitely take waterboarding. His point somewhat breaks down right there, I agree.

--Len.

[Perd Hapley]

Oh, you're talking about water-boarding and sleep dep.  I was talking about torture.  Nevermind.   

[Len Budney]

Oh, you're talking about water-boarding and sleep dep.  I was talking about torture.  Nevermind.   

I invite you to try waterboarding, sleep deprivation, etc., for oh, three years, say, like Jos? Pedilla. Like Jos? Pedilla, you're unlikely to come through the experience sane--but at least you weren't "tortured."

But if you really distinguish that from torture, then McCain's statement should make perfect sense to you: anyone who rips fingernails off Muslims, or beheads them with butter knives, and then suffers the same at the hands of Muslim captors, is clearly getting his just desserts.

--Len.

[Laurent du Var]

>>Islamists will always torture Americans to the maximum degree, and make a video of it, whatever we do.  The main problem is that the rest of the world holds a double standard: they won't say a thing if terrorists to torture Americans, but if Americans do it back, they condemn us as loudly as they can.<<

Well, I'm one of the official "rest of the world" representers on this board
and I can tell you that nobody who sees a beheading video is thinking: Well
they play Britney Spears records to the poor prisoners in Cuba. I have only seen part or the beginning of those videos and they made me physically sick and still do just thinking of them.

[ShrinkMD]

Hmm, so how about those SKS's and Mausers made after the war in Yugoslavia.  They were commies, too, but they were "independent" of the USSR, right? (I need to bone up on the pre/post war history of the Balkans next, I suppose)  I remember reading that the Croatians didn't mind at all being part of the Third Reich, had fun rounding the Jews up, but how about the rest of the people there?

Is it better if the owner/shooter of the milsurp in question consciously pays homage to the misdeeds possibly previously perpetrated, and dedicates the range time/safe queen time to the much preferably goal of preserving the shooting sports and the 2nd Amendment?  Say a prayer over the turkey, then eat it?

[Perd Hapley]

anyone who rips fingernails off Muslims, or beheads them with butter knives, and then suffers the same at the hands of Muslim captors, is clearly getting his just desserts. 

Are you then alleging that our government has sanctioned and performed such things in the current conflict?  In any case, you are speaking as if the Muslim in question is morally equivalent to the Western interrogator.  In other words, you are speaking as if a terrorist and a soldier are morally equivalent.  In that case, I don't wish to discuss this with you further.  Wasn't aiming my earlier comment at you, anyway. 

[Werewolf]

anyone who rips fingernails off Muslims, or beheads them with butter knives, and then suffers the same at the hands of Muslim captors, is clearly getting his just desserts.

If I wrote what I really want to write about the statement made by mr budney above I'd be banned from APS forever.

I like this place enough that I'm going to take a few deep breaths, get control and ignore that which deserves to be ignored.

[Len Budney]

Are you then alleging that our government has sanctioned and performed such things in the current conflict?

Not at all. I'm noting that if "torture" to you means only barbaric practices like that, then by your own definitions McCain's comments are (1) perfectly reasonable, and (2) completely irrelevant, since the US (probably) doesn't do any of those things.

That you took exception to his remarks at all suggests that you do realize that McCain was referring to "aggressive interrogation techniques" that actually are practiced by the US. But if you realized that, then your remark that you "thought I was talking about real torture" didn't really make sense, since we were indeed all talking about such things as waterboarding.

In any case, you are speaking as if the Muslim in question is morally equivalent to the Western interrogator.

Definitely not. I'm acutely aware of the difference between the attacker and the defender. Though the defender might descend to the moral level of his enemy if he really were, for example, ripping off fingernails, etc. The three possible objections to "aggressive interrogation" are:

1) When used on an Arab who turns out to be innocent (which is still the majority of those apprehended under suspicion), the infliction of torture is a crime. That's why due process was invented, by the way.

2) Depending on the nature of the man's crimes, and the extent of the torture, it's cruel and unusual punishment. If you happen to have an honest-to-goodness terrorist murderer, I can't be bothered sparing sympathy for him, almost regardless what you do to him. But by torturing suspects, to find out whether they know something useful, without any semblance of a genuine effort to establish guilt first, you lose any justification that might proceed from his guilt. He isn't guilty; so far, he's just a suspect.

3) Torture is largely ineffective at generating useful intelligence, and especially in its extreme forms it dehumanizes the interrogator. It harms both the interrogator and the victim, without even fulfilling the purpose that ostensibly justifies it.

In other words, you are speaking as if a terrorist and a soldier are morally equivalent...

Definitely not. Self-defense good; initiation of aggression bad. There is no equivalence whatsoever between soldiers as defenders and terrorists as attackers. Some individual soldiers, such as Pfc Jesse Spielman, are no better than the terrorists. And it's no secret that I regard some in the administration as war criminals. But it would violate the very core of my libertarian soul if I morally confused attack and defense.

--Len.

[Perd Hapley]

No, McCain's comment was senseless regardless of what he meant by torture.  I just heard a sound clip from him last night, describing how he was tortured on one occasion.  It involved being contorted into a painful position with rope, then left for the night.  That would count as torture by my definition.  Yet this man, who has already been subjected to worse things than water-boarding or sleep deprivation, believes that our refusal to use "torture," (whether sleep deprivation or castration) will somehow help us.  Given his history, he knows full well that the Viet Communists were much more renowned for their torture than were we, yet they control Viet Nam at this hour.   

[Perd Hapley]

I might as well give my own view of torture.  I believe it is wrong under almost all circumstances, and a desire to torture a person is usually indicative of a very wrong and hateful attitude.  I also believe that there may be some situations where refusing to torture, in very extreme and immediate situations, would be criminally negligent, if someone's life may be saved by torturing a perpetrator.

The objection may be raised that such situations never arise, or that torture would not actually help in such circumstances.  I hope those things are true. 

And when I speak of torture, I do not mean "harsh treatment" such as water-boarding. 

[Len Budney]

And when I speak of torture, I do not mean "harsh treatment" such as water-boarding. 

Don't underestimate man's ingenuity, especially when it comes to barbarism. Some clever little devils found a way to use a leaky faucet to drive a man completely out of his mind.

As for McCain's remark, it's unclear whether he intended it as a practical or a moral statement. As a moral statement it's spot on: adopting the terrorists' methods would make us as bad as them. As a practical statement it's somewhat debatable--but at minimum, it undermines folks general sympathy with our side, and fuels their sympathy with the terrorists. Abu Ghraib definitely sent a shock wave through our Muslim "allies," like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. A couple good beheadings would very likely get us expelled from Saudi and denied overflight rights by most Arab countries.

I don't think anyone believes that giving cotton candy to POWs will make the terrorists do the same to captured Americans. But I don't think anyone claimed such a thing, either.

--Len.