What’s Wrong with the World

Thank you, Paul.

Where's the "like" button? :-)

Zippy's nonsensical final few posts almost drove me from this site.

Maybe I'll check out his usury postings and skip the ones about "torture".

In an ideal world, I suppose I'd have stuck around long enough to finish the job.

Zippy sounds a bit addled in the brain to me. My daughter is held by a rapist. I have in my possession his confederate. Trust me, no power on heaven or earth would keep me from extracting the information necessary to save my daughter and believe me I would get good reliable information. It might not be pretty but I would save my daughter NO MATTER WHAT IT TOOK and not lose one teensy weensy wink of sleep. I wouldn't "enjoy" doing it but trust me, I wouldn't hesitate one single second.

What sort of barbaric calculus attaches more value to the lives of those who would harm us than to our own? Were it not for the willingness of Christian warriors to fight, kill, maim, and yes, torture, we would not know the light of Jesus Christ.

The "confederate" turns out, under your tortures, to only be a poor victim whose own daughter the rapist has under the knife to coerce his cooperation. The rapist, suspicious because his "confederate," delayed by your torments, has failed to check in, murders both girls. Now you have tortured an innocent man and hastened the slaughter of two girls. Sleep well, buddy.

(As you can see, anyone can spin out hypotheticals which strengthen their argument. It is a modest intellectual talent of little use in true reasoning.)

I wouldn't "enjoy" doing it but trust me, I wouldn't hesitate one single second.

A lot of men talk like this in defense of their daughter. It rarely occurs to them that the rapist might actually be her boyfriend and that that act of rape may have been consensual sex (usually is) that she didn't want daddy to know about.

Go ahead, pull the trigger without finding out. His dad will have every moral right to come gunning for you if you got it wrong.

I know I just took it in a direction you didn't intend, but my scenario, not yours, is the one in which fathers in the real world are significantly more likely to find themselves in when thinking along your lines.

Zippy,

I have been told that Geneva Convention permits the summary execution of unlawful combatants. Where do you stand on government forces giving such combatants a simple choice: tell us what we want to know, or you're a dead man?

Dog pile on Zippy! And here I was going to offer a meek "welcome back". What was I thinking? :)

I have been told that Geneva Convention permits the summary execution of unlawful combatants. Where do you stand on government forces giving such combatants a simple choice: tell us what we want to know, or you're a dead man?

(2) I have no issue in principle with abbreviated due process as long as that abbreviated due process is accurate in determining the truth of the convicted man's guilt and the justice of death as punishment, and is necessary because of actual conditions rather than being adopted as an information-gathering expedient.

(3) I have no categorical problem with a plea bargain with a convicted criminal.

I think (2) is probably the most difficult bar to get over in our present conditions. There are conditions in wartime in general when speedy on the spot process and summary execution might be the only way to protect the innocent from the unjust aggressor. I am thinking here specifically of combat in which modern means of immobilization, transport, and communication are unavailable. But those conditions probably do not apply to any present conflict in which we are involved.

What would make more sense would be to try captives speedily in a military tribunal, sentence them, and then offer a plea bargain. I have no sympathy whatsoever for "punishment before trial" in any form.

Trust me, no power on heaven or earth would keep me from extracting the information necessary to save my daughter and believe me I would get good reliable information.

Why would I trust you or your method? You've admitted a total disregard for legal and moral boundaries.

You've admitted a total disregard for legal and moral boundaries.

And yet, if he finds himself in Paul's scenario, he'll no doubt be begging those who handle him to abide by both sets of boundaries with all grace and mercy.

Dog pile on Zippy!

Mike T,
You'll have to explain what your point is. The father will be angry and distraught. Those are good reasons to distrust his impulses.

Ugh! Yet another torture debate.

But those conditions probably do not apply to any present conflict in which we are involved.

I don't really think the necessary conditions are very unlikely to come up in almost ANY large conflict. All you need is a unit that is temporarily cut off, holding a captured spy / non-uniformed combatant, and being forced to stealthily get the hell out of Dodge because a much bigger enemy force is coming down the pike. You can't be realistically confident of retaining the spy securely while on the move, and you can be confident that he will give away your position somehow if he finds the chance. That's condition enough for me. As long as you try him first under battlefield rules, of course, and find that he's guilty. Finding him to be a combatant without a uniform is sufficient for that, isn't it?

Tony:

What procedure would you recommend in your hypothetical if the combatant was uniformed?

You'll have to explain what your point is. The father will be angry and distraught. Those are good reasons to distrust his impulses.

My point is that he'll cross those boundaries, and by his own admission, cheerfully do so toward the man he believes is part of a crime against his daughter. Then, when the dust settles, and he finds out what he did, I wager he won't be man enough to take the full punishment for harming an innocent man. Instead, he'll expect the state to show him mercy in light of his daughter's situation.

Zippy, so what if you're not a Catholic? I have it on good authority that not everyone reads the catechism. I mean, CC2297 is powerful stuff, but it could be missed, and is that an excuse for those practitioners of "raving non sequiturs"? Will God in His infinite wisdom and mercy forgive them?
I realize that that last is a matter of opinion, but feel free.

Zippy, so what if you're not a Catholic?

It isn't that I don't like formal heretics. Some of my best friends are formal heretics.

It is just that some people are born with an ecumenical charism, and I'm not one of them.

Ah come on Zippy, whatever you are born with, or not, you read the Catechism, you talk moral law, get involved.
Try this; Suppose, just suppose, that the war criminals Cheney and Rove are telling the truth about the results of their satanic, medievalist barbarisms, & in passing, providing us with an opportunity to feel grand about ourselves.
That supposed truth being that information was gained which contributed to the saving of lives, possibly an attack on the west coast similar to 9/11,{hate to remind you of that.]

Now granted, the current Administration only released selected memos, busy as they are "deeming" laws passed, so we have incomplete info. But to proceed, if true does not a dilemma present itself for our consideration? On one hand we have our carefully cultivated scruples, on the other a possible moral obligation to prevent mass death of other humans, Americans no less.

From your perspective, and having already waltzed around the Geneva Convention, your remarkable 3/17 12:51 post, more of which later, if there is a later, and granting that life is sacred, did we "torture", waterboard with justification on behalf of those lives? Or should we have done nothing. This is retrospective and based on the premise that you can't know beforehand what will come from an interrogation but sensibly ought to act on what is gained.

Now, where do you go Zippy for enlightenment & a sense of personal obligation on this, back to the catechism? Perhaps the 3000 series having worked your way out of the 2000's.
Yeah, it gets messy doesn't it?

Oh, and where in any logic is it said that "appeal to finer detail" is a fallacy? As opposed to what, blurry detail, muddled, what?

possibly an attack on the west coast similar to 9/11

But to proceed, if true does not a dilemma present itself for our consideration? On one hand we have our carefully cultivated scruples, on the other a possible moral obligation to prevent mass death of other humans, Americans no less.

Oh, and where in any logic is it said that "appeal to finer detail" is a fallacy? As opposed to what, blurry detail, muddled, what?

What procedure would you recommend in your hypothetical if the combatant was uniformed?

Why, procedures suitable for POWs, of course. What could be more obvious?

I procedures suitable for POWs are available, that implies that on-the-spot due process isn't a necessity. That was why I asked.

If procedures...

Zippy, sorry, you failed the test. The lives of potentially thousands means less to you than water boarding, in this case, one person, a terrorist. Of course even assuming water boarding KSM or others is evil it is outweighed by the greater evil of multiple deaths in large numbers. So given the case you would knowingly, you did say "never", allow thousands to die because, as I understand you, the saving of those lives could not, "never", be a good. Which means that their deaths could not be bad, Or is it neutral? A curious morality.
Now I could say that the "evil" is mitigated by the good, the greater good that comes from it. But no, the innocent must die, mitigation is not possible. Zippy must be justified.

Remember as you vexate over this, the procedure hasn't occurred in four or five years, it was practiced on all of three men, and with members of Congress aware of it and the reasons why. Five years, three men, and you can't let it go. My, my.

#21 & 26

The lives of potentially thousands means less to you than water boarding, in this case, one person, a terrorist. Of course even assuming water boarding KSM or others is evil it is outweighed by the greater evil of multiple deaths in large numbers.

There have always been limits to what "evil" one may morally do. Denying or blaspheming God is one of those immutable ones for Jews and Christians. Even if the entire human race were to be exterminated, you would not be justified in denying or blaspheming God to save them. The tradition has always been that that, murder and sexual sin are the three "don't go theres" in this situation.

If Zippy is guilty of anything, it's just building on a tradition that includes, but predates, the church.

Mike, noted, there's a couple of thousand answers to that but I'll hold my fire.
I do recognize your sincerity in this, but a dilemma remains, and one that must be answered, just not now or beyond where I have gone for the moment.

I procedures suitable for POWs are available, that implies that on-the-spot due process isn't a necessity.

Not at all. Due process for a POW, who is someone under orders to fight you but whose surrender altered that obligation, is vastly different from due process for someone who is not under orders from legitimate authority, and whose "surrender" means something vastly different. "Due" at root refers to actions taking due regard for the full circumstances, including both applicable law and emergency conditions.

Sure, and that is all nice and vague. But if it isn't necessary to do somethng specific (which you are free to specify) on the spot to one class of prisoner, it isn't necessary for another class of prisoner. If it is necessary, well, then please specify what you would do to the uniformed POW.

On the spot necessity doesn't change based on prisoner classification, as far as I can tell.

I think the idea that summary execution of any class of prisoner might be a necessity in the kinds of conflict we are involved in is implausible. I offer as evidence the fact that we are not in fact summarily executing war criminals on the spot in any current conflict.

I do recognize your sincerity in this, but a dilemma remains, and one that must be answered

I disagree. You want to be able to dance around the issue of what is the will of God here. Zippy believes that he has logically shown torture to be against it. Therefore if he is correct, it is logically consistent to allow those people to die rather than waterboard someone.

Basic Christian morality begins with the first commandment: love the Lord. The Lord also said "if you love me, you will keep my commandments." It's really that cut and dry if Zippy is correct.

On the spot necessity doesn't change based on prisoner classification

Not quite correct. The necessity changes with the full range of conditions and circumstances that specify the act. There is no "necessity" to torture someone to get information under ANY circumstances (obviously I disagree with johnt), but if torture were moral, there would in fact be circumstances where "necessity" would dictate using it and other circumstances where they would not. Similarly, accepting the surrender of a uniformed soldier is a distinctly different act than accepting a "surrender" of a non-uniformed combatant. What is moral or necessary for you do to the prisoner after accepting that surrender also depends on his classification. It is, for example, morally necessary not to even attempt to get more info than name, rank and serial number from a POW, but that fails to apply to the other.

Tony:

Similarly, accepting the surrender of a uniformed soldier is a distinctly different act than accepting a "surrender" of a non-uniformed combatant. What is moral or necessary for you do to the prisoner after accepting that surrender also depends on his classification. It is, for example, morally necessary not to even attempt to get more info than name, rank and serial number from a POW, but that fails to apply to the other.

But none of that is at issue. What is at issue is that I said

But those conditions [which would require abbreviated due process and execution of war criminals on the spot] probably do not apply to any present conflict in which we are involved.

I don't really think the necessary conditions are very unlikely to come up in almost ANY large conflict.

It isn't my job to substantiate your particular claims.

This has all been done to death.

It isn't my job to substantiate your particular claims.

Nor would I ask you to. In fact, I didn't ask you to, for that matter. I have no idea why would you think that you needed to defend yourself on that point.

Zippy, I took your original point, and made a modest qualification on it, without disagreeing with or trying to undermine your central point in the least. That qualification included a somewhat specific example. Is there something wrong with that example? Do you need more specifics?

to say what - what in particular - you would do to POWs in whatever particular cases you are talking about.

I would do what the laws of nations provide for doing to POWs in such cases. What would you do? You indicated that you are not opposed in principle to battlefield execution after appropriate battlefield determination of guilt (or "due process"), when the conditions would require it. Why don't you tell us what kind of conditions you think could "require" it? I already gave you my example. Then tell us what you would do under those conditions, to (a) a soldier captured as a POW, and (b) a non-soldier non-uniformed combatant violating the laws of warfare. Would there be any difference at all?

I don't think that there are ANY conditions that require battlefield execution of a POW (who isn't also someone violating the laws of war), because the laws of nations provide constraints that mean such an execution is illegal (and for some very good reasons, I might add). Therefore, I wouldn't execute him. Is that specific enough? Not all of the same rules and constraints apply to a non-uniformed illegal combatant. Therefore, I might execute him - if conditions warranted it.

Why don't you tell us what kind of conditions you think could "require" it?

If all you are saying is that my gloss on those conditions - a gloss the intention of which is to refrain from passing judgment on historical cases in (say) the Middle Ages where battlefield tribunal and execution was thought necessary - is incomplete, well, I agree. It was just a gloss. I was asked my opinion, and I gave it.

It wasn't intended as a justification of Richard's slaughter of his Mohammedan prisoners.

I already gave you my example. Then tell us what you would do under those conditions, to (a) a soldier captured as a POW, and (b) a non-soldier non-uniformed combatant violating the laws of warfare. Would there be any difference at all?

I wouldn't, is my answer. Judging and executing him is not something I am authorized to do under the Army Field Manual.