General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why are right wingers so often intellectually dishonest? [View all]0rganism
(23,817 posts)and that is the crux of the whole problem, the notion that it is defensible in any way. The rationale doesn't really matter, especially anything about the victims of torture and their presumed guilt or complicity in other crimes. Their circumstances are completely irrelevant. Even if it were an effective means of extracting accurate information (which it isn't), there is a larger ethical issue that transcends all arguments of utility.
"Our use of torture" is fundamentally about us and who we want to be as a society. How do we want to be known around the world, how do we want to be remembered by history, how do we want to represent ourselves to our children and grandchildren, who do we want to be?
Whether or not "Muslims are worse" or "McVeigh was a Christian" is completely orthogonal to the real issue. As long as one is arguing over sufficient justifications, one accepts implicitly the premise that torture is ever justifiable. It is not.