this is aimed at everyone posting on this thread in favor or defense of using torture and extreme and questionable methods in a crisis not just the guy this is replying too.
torture has not once been proven to actually be effective outside of fiction. under torture people make stuff up to make the pain stop even informing on family members and friends who are innocent so they get tortured instead. the way torture to works is to make it so unbearable youd give up your own ideals an even your own interests and incriminate yourself just to make it stop. they confess to things they havent done or they invent a plot to make sure you believe them. if they really have done something they may embellish or add in things on top of true information to make you believe they have told you everything to gurantee you stop hurting them, leaving you chasing phantom conspiracies that never exsisted wasting time and effort. theres a reason torture is not used in law enforcement even in cases of kidnappings or when a crime may be imminent and why torture is being used by fewer and fewer governments. no entirely usuable and reliable intelligence can be gained from torture. in iraq there was a former high ranking military officer who was captured who was willing to talk and give relevant information about forces currently posing a threat to the coalition forces. he wanted to maybe cut a deal and hope that hed improve his situation by talking. then in abu ghraib before military intelligence operatives had a chance to fully interview him he had his head and eyebrows shaved and was abused and humiliated by over zealous guards who wanted to ''show him whos boss''. he shut down completly and refused to cooperate for months due to this and troops died who would of been saved if law and order had been upheld. he resented his treatment so much it made him believe he should resist and not help these people that hed earlier not cared about doing business with to save himself. even with coercive treatment they could not extract the ammount of usable information they would have been handed freely to start with.
the part in this movie where denzels character says maybe this is what they really want, chaos and us giving up our ideals and turning on each other. i think thats pretty accurate. its helpful for dictators and people who hold absolute power in their community to show democracys as weak and fearful and just as bad. in the recent times of the start of the unsteady spread of democracy in the middle east, the people who are worried about losing power, the dictators and those who profit from those systems love to be able to point at these things and say democracy is just as bad they are no better than us when the chips are down they have no moral superiority no higher ideals.
all torture and special interogation methods and extrodinary renditions have done in real terms is recruit more terrorists and led to the killings of US and british soldiers on the front lines. it gives more of these morons the idea that their cruel inhuman actions are justified to end our cruel unjustified actions. terrorists use propaganda to recruit people who are angry and outraged by something. we have to be better, we have to be whiter than white to give no excuse to help empower these butchers. if there was no perceived injustice to fight less people would be willing to give their money and their lives to fight it. al qaeda began because the US military built bases on sites sacred to islam as they didnt see it as important and this was used as an excuse for violence by people who really only wanted power for themselves, but it gives them the ability to manipulate those lower down into service of a 'cause' and into commiting heinous acts.
just look at ourselves, we wanted to go into libya and other places to fight injustice, if there had been less of it going on we wouldnt have bothered going to the expense of intervening. if we gave extremists less ammo to use as propaganda and justification and less to fight against wed take the wind out of their sails and reduce the power of their argument. theyd go from an image of necersary evil in the eyes of their people to raving lunatics making a fuss about nothing. it is us that gives them justification for their actions if we look at ourselves from their eyes. yes crimes are committed against us but we can be stronger and better and not allow ourselves to be reduced to the same disgusting level.
also abuses and shows of force may briefly shock and terrify enemies in a combat zone in the short term but in the long run they breed hatred resentment and resolve against you within the targeted communities. ira members have been recorded as saying their biggest coup happened without their involvement and was the bloody sunday massacre of peaceful protestors by the british army. within days the ira's support had increased by 10 times including funding and volunteers, they called it their greatest victory and was a favoured arguement used for decades against anyone who called for them to disarm, calling those who wanted peace traitors whod allow those victims to go unavenged. today even american intelligence agencys admit that al qaeda's biggest assets in recruiting people is not their own actions but the abuses of guantanamo bay and abu ghraib and the deaths of civilians at the hands of the west such as the pakistani drone strikes. its a propaganda coup to say look how evil they are, they hate our religion they murder children they lock people up and torture them just for being muslim, you must fight them and even if you dont like us we are the best chance. to say the west are hypocrites they preach peace an justice and tell us to be like them but when they face the challenges of violence we do they act no different to what they criticise us for.
the same happened in vietnam, the more innocent people that were bombed and killed, the more brothers, fathers, friends and patriots were driven to action against the american forces. every time a village was burnt down of flattened the more vietcong popped up and the more supporters they gained in the long run. it may have made people afraid to support them for awhile but once the fear wore off all that was left was anger and even greater determination that the americans must be fought against and must be defeated, the more people were willing to sacrifice before they would give in.
its easy to just be gun ho and talk about them deserving what they get but the reality is that attitude only does us more harm than good, it means increased attacks on members of our armed forces and more deaths, injuries and distress placed on them by allowing our enemies to gain more funding, weaponary and troops. all the known attempted terror attacks on british soil in the last 10 years were carried out by people who only became radicalised after the invasions of muslim countries. they became violent and monstrous by living amongst people who said it was ok to bomb and kill their fellow muslims, seeing it on the tv and in the press everyday, growing to see their own neighbours as the enemy who distrusts and hates them even when they had done nothing wrong, who condoned violence against people simply for being muslim. its the heavy handed out dated and ultimately impotent cowardly tactics that fuel hatred and fuel suspicion of them by us and of us by them.
also if an argument for torture and cruelty and no fair trial is justified by them being evil people, what of doing it to drug dealers and murderers? why not stone them to death in the streets as they deserve? then what about just extending it to lesser crimes? such as thieves? maybe cut off their hands as a deterent right? then what about just extending it slightly to people who get in our way or we just plain dont like? say if an ethnic minority lives where theres oil or where theres land we want. its for our own greater good and we dont like them anyway so why not right? HELLO!! that is why we fight to begin with! that is what our loyal soldiers are fighting against. that is why we fight. that is why our loved ones stand in harms way. to spread democracy, to protect people from terror and harm. after all, all torture is is terrorism.
if it is ok for for us to torture and butcher terrorists who would kill our civilians, do you advocate that it would be ok for the torture and slaughter of our bomber pilots and special forces soldiers for the times they kill unarmed people. if it is ok to torture enemy combatants to save our soldiers, is it then ok in your eyes for them to behead and torture our soldiers when captured for trying to harm and kill their fighters? are you condoning the crimes against prisoners of war committed by the axis in the second world war?
those crimes were done for the exact same reasons and with the same mentality. they are the enemy, they were trying to kill us so who cares, they are criminals anyway. its why hitler ordered the execution of special forces and the 50 stalag luft mass escaper members. its why the japanese worked an starved thousands of british soldiers to death, its why snipers were often lynched and murdered by the forces that captured them instead of turning them in to the authoritys. its the same justification in race wars for genocide, they did it to us, or ok not this particular one, we dont know that he ever did anything wrong for sure but one of his kind a member of his cause or race did so its ok if we do it to this one now. its what leads to escalations of blood shed which means more innocent people on your own side die too. they do something to us, we do it back worse, so they do even worse back and we return the compliment and so on until both sides feel justified to do worse and worse and worse.
in the cold war there were some who said the greatest threat on earth came from the smallest yield tactical nuclear weapons. the ones that could be used in a battle to just destroy a few building or small area, not a whole city like the larger ones. why? theyd do very little damage really, some were the equivelant to a simple bombing run. so why is it they have now been pretty much completly destroyed globally by all sides? its because these small nuclear weapons such as nuclear artillery shells and landmines were far more likely to be used in conflict by officers on the battlefield in a time of crisis that to them seemed the most important thing in the world, as there could be a belief in a crisis such as in a battle and an army is about to be overun, that to them in their world view at that moment it wouldnt be so bad to just fire off one little nuke which would have not that much lasting effect to help destroy the army attacking them and give them a chance of survival. it would just be one little act and justified in a time of crisis as saving lives and having no other choice and wed be wiped out if we didnt. problem is that then the guy on the other side says well they used one against us, wel just use a real little one as well, except maybe wel fire 2, or a slightly bigger one, after all they did it first and wel lose the battle if we dont and it will save our men from being shelled by more, its saving lives and wel be wiped out if we dont. so the first army that fired one gets hit by another, now they fire one back and the other side returns fire again and so on. until from that one little act, that one little immoral thing on one little battlefield in some unimportant corner that the original person justified to themselves as not really being the end of the world or having any truly lasting effects and wouldnt really matter in the great scheme of things grows and grows until it reaches the point of full on nuclear war and the launching of city destroying strategic nuclear weapons. the fact is those small compromises that dont seem to be the end of the world such as torturing just 5 or 6 guys or just shelling one field somewhere in some far flung corner of the globe no ones ever heard of to save yourselves and the lives of your men, can soon grow out of control to devastating effect.
if you remove the fundamental rights of even people you disagree with, where does it end and how do you stop from going further and further and further. their are parts of the usa where sex toys are banned as immoral and deviant and even church groups who wish to ban butt plugs and pornography and alcohol as they apparently attribute to homosexuality and immorality. what if those people come to power and gain absolute power in their area? to them it would be ok and totally justified to say whip people they feel are immoral and going to hell anyway. say they decide anyone who drinks or swears or has casual sex is evil and ok to be punished and locked up as is done in some parts of the world. who gets to draw the line or hold back those in power once you allow things to go down the alley of it being ok to do bad stuff to this guy, because to us hes bad anyway and he might corrupt others or cause more bad things if we dont. who gets to ultimatly judge and how do you ensure it.
once torture and abuse of law is given the ok its a very very slippery slope. there is always danger in the world always risk of catastrophe but if we allow ourselves to overreact with fear at every incident there would be no democracy or rights anywhere as thered always be suspended for the common good to face this current problem. the people who condone martial law and having supreme rulers and dictators and kings use the argument that it ensures greater safety. that will always be true, that will never end so if we give in to it we will never escape it. dictatorships can be more decisive, can decide to turn industry to build what they demand an set prices as they wish as under nations with military juntas and one party rule. they can react more quickly to danger go to war sooner turn industry to war industry at a whim and greater control civil unrest and political opposition. but god who would want to live in such a place.
fear can always be used as justification for despicable things and lowering ourselves to the levels of the barbarians we face, its always the easier more cowardly thing to do, it takes no courage, fortitude, hard work or self restraint. but it is evil and we are better off without it and capable of being better than that if only the memvers of the world of politics in some places didnt resort to pandering and grandstanding and stoking the fires of hate, fear and distrust for personal glory and to seize the opportunity push their own agendas.
personally i think the willis character in this movie believed in liberty an personal freedom to start with and asked not to be used and meant it. but once he was put in the position of having to stop the attacks, once he had sole responsibility resting on him for saving those lives, it allowed him to justify one thing an then another and it dominoed as things usually do. at first he was an honest decent man defending his country and as it went on he began to think differently viewing himself as ultimatly serving good, ultimatly justified to do anything he wished. ultimate power corrupts absolutly. he could do anything and no one could stop him and if anyone questioned him he could call them a coward or traitor and just do as he pleased and so he fell down the slippery slope to the point where in his eyes it was that this one life will save many others, then if it had continued, one more life would of saved others and another and another and another crime after crime after crime justified by the fact they were in the pursuit of the right thing. eventually the 'good work' would have become worse than the attacks ever would have been with more people afraid more people dead more people injured and more people inspired by their treatment to fight back in the future and more people around the world justified to commit crimes themselves in the pursuit of what is 'good'. ultimatly willis's character gives himself up to face up to what he did because i believe ultimately he was a good man put in a horrendeous situation by people giving in to their fears. he is the soldier who we allow and encourage to commit atrocties such as arresting and interogating innocent wives and children in case they know something about their terrorist husband/father, or funding and arming terrorists to take down a dictator or enemy government. he is the cia that armed and trained the shahs secret police to torture and murder in iran, who armed and trained the contras to commit genocide rape and murder, the mujahadeen and taliban who we trained armed and funded to fight the communists even if it meant letting them murder women for going to school an return women to the status of property. he is all the dark evils that we compromise and do for the greater good at this moment that then grow out of control an bite us. hes a good man who when given belief any evil action commited is justified becomes a monster. he is the soldier put in the impossible position.
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