Quote:
Originally Posted by Laz116
I really don't understand why you or me should be anything more worth than the average iraqi or afghan. But you seem willing to accept that your government without any legislation to back it up submits the average afghan or iraqi to torture. Would you accept those premises for yourself?
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Well, yeah, actually. If I were going around with a gang of terrorists who made it their mission to kill innocent civilians and generally indulge in deadly mayhem, and the people we were trying to kill picked me up, I'd rather expect to be tortured.
But I'd trick them! I'd tell them everything they wanted to know. It's a fairly practical way to avoid being tortured, at least some of the time.
BTW, the average Iraqi or Afghan doesn't seem to be waging war against the US. So they probably aren't being tortured. It's not like the army is out there randomly picking up Iraqis and Afghans in order to torture them. Usually, those people don't know anything, so why waste the energy?
Oh, all of this is based on accepting your assumption that what is being done to these people is actually torture, legally speaking. I don't think it really is. Not that it isn't rather unpleasant.
But the truth is, you don't have any idea at all about what the "law" is, or what "legislation" is required, or what "legislation" exists. You have no knowledge whatsoever about the laws of the United States.
So basically, when you start talking about laws and legislation, you don't know what you are talking about. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean it as a literal statement of fact, in the same way that I would mean it if I said that you don't know anything about quantum physics. (You aren't a physicist, are you?)
On the other hand, I happen to be a US lawyer, and I've done a little reading about the legal uses of what you think of as torture. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I know enough to tell you that the legal basis for the government's treatment of the prisoners seems correct. I would expect the government to win any case against the military for the use of "torture," if it came to court here in the US. I don't know about what might happen in some other country, but frankly, I don't much care.