Which do you consider the greater evil, What the US did to Kahlid Sheik Mohammed, or what his renegades did on 9/11, and what they plan to do to us in the future?
If you believe that what the terrorist did is the greater evil, then what we do to their leaders should be the lesser of two evils, right?
2007-11-06 09:23:57 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Nice no answer Mr. President
2007-11-06 09:33:02 · update #1
Brickety, killing your mom wouldn't save thousands of lives either.
2007-11-06 09:34:13 · update #2
ndmagicman, you assume two things.
1. They aren't using torture now (they are, see the Nick Berg video).
2. These prisoners are covered by the Geneva Conventions (They aren't).
2007-11-06 09:39:10 · update #3
Well, it may be the lesser of two evils but it doesn't make it morally right, or, more to the point, legal under US or international law.
2007-11-06 09:45:40 · answer #1 · answered by John V 5 · 7⤊ 1⤋
The lesser of two evils is still an evil and does NOT make torture right or justifiable. How much credibility does the US have in condemning the torture of monks in Burma who are struggling for democracy? The answer is NONE... because those monks are being water boarded too. That's the slippery slope of torture. If we do it, then we have no moral ground or credibility to condemn when it's done to others including our own citizens and soldiers. That's the flip side of the supporting and justifying a "lesser evil".
The Geneva Conventions (plural) were written to cover All persons in a time of war. The Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) are the law, in accordance with Article VI of the Constitution. (Links below)
2007-11-06 10:25:25 · answer #2 · answered by sagacious_ness 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
They are either prisoners of war, which means they are covered by the Geneva Conventions, or they're criminals, which means they have to be charged with a crime and they have the right to due process of law including the right to a fair and speedy trial. Either way, torturing them is illegal. Water boarding was declared illegal by President Ronald Reagan.Asst. Attornet General Daniel LeVin and Attorney General Gonzales also told President Bush that water boarding is illegal torture. Daniel LeVin was then fired, and AG Gonzales refuses to testify.
I don't believe our military should be capturing and torturing true terrorists. They should be killing them. Capturing them obviously causes problems.
The military has already stated that no useful intelligence has been gathered from terrorists through torture or not. Terrorists only know their own orders.
2007-11-06 09:46:19 · answer #3 · answered by CaesarLives 5 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Killing is bad. Torture is bad. Waterboarding is torture. What is the lesser of two evils is not the issue.
There are many activities that are the lesser of two evils and they are still bad. It's like saying that aggravated assault is the lesser of two evils compared to attempted murder. So what? It's still unacceptable.
Torture should not be the policy of the United States.
2007-11-06 09:43:20 · answer #4 · answered by tribeca_belle 7 · 5⤊ 1⤋
This is a patently foolish question. You don't justify your own wrong actions by saying that they are less wrong than the actions of the people you are fighting. Yes, of course what was done on 9/11 is worse than waterboarding. But that does not mean that it would be OK for us to do it. It doesn't matter how wrong what was done to us was, it matters how wrong what you're suggesting we do is. We're the good guys, remember? The lesser of two evils is still evil.
2007-11-06 09:45:43 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 1⤋
japanese was caught and tried after ww2 for war crimes for waterboarding.we have already esthablished waterboarding as a war crime now we're trying to do it.
why don't u listen to john maccain a guy who was a pow for like 5 years,he's totally against it and all of tortured because he was tortured.i would listen to him before some fat politician.
i do believe 9/11 was the greater evil and waterboarding is the lesser evil but evil is the operative word.waterboard and any other torture is evil and as christian americans we should hold our selves above evil
2007-11-06 09:40:20 · answer #6 · answered by tyler m 3 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Which is a greater evil, a terrorist organization attacking a country and killing 3,000 of it's people... or a nation that, until now, was able to claim the "moral high ground" attacking and killing over 100,000 people of a nation that had nothing to do with attacking them in the first place?
That's not an eye for an eye. That's mass murder for an eye.
2007-11-06 09:48:10 · answer #7 · answered by Fretless 6 · 4⤊ 2⤋
I don't oppose waterboarding, or other forms of torture, because they are torture, bad as that sounds. I oppose torture because it has been proven that torture does not garner truthful or significant information as a result. Someone being tortured will say anything to get it to stop, it's a waste of time and could result in bad decisions as a result of getting bad information. So I think it's a bad idea to ruin our country's reputation over using a tactic that has been proven to be extremely faulty.
2007-11-06 09:37:22 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 7⤊ 1⤋
Well, simpleton, the point is that someone who is being waterboarded still needs to confess to being a "terrerrist". If we would know he were guilty, there would be no need to waterboard him, would you? Well, simpleton, the point is that if the guy is innocent, then what? Civilized countries have courts and stuff and do not waterboard. Uncivilized countries waterboard.
Did you just get beamed up from the Middle Ages?
2007-11-06 09:35:43 · answer #9 · answered by Rikounet 4 · 7⤊ 1⤋
Killing my mom would also be a lesser evil than 9-11, but I still don't want ya doin it.
2007-11-06 09:27:49 · answer #10 · answered by brickity hussein brack 5 · 10⤊ 0⤋