Quote:
Originally Posted by danielf
Because killing is par for the course for war, and civilian casualties can't (always) be avoided. Torture is completely avoidable, and we signed up to treaties banning it.
It's a bit like it's OK to eat animals but not to impart unnecessary cruelty on them. You could argue that an animal is better of being subjected to cruelty than being slaughtered, yet the cruelty against animals is illegal and slaughtering/eating them isn't.
|
I know about the treaties, the question is why have we signed treaties making torture illegal whilst we reserve the right to kill other people and let's not pretend that the consequences of bombing can be controlled, aren't terrible and don't often amount to torture for those affected. There are always alternatives to any military action - the choices made more usually depend more upon such things as equipment, manpower and political will than a desire to minmise all risk to the innocent.
In conflict situations (military and otherwise) we justify all sorts of things on the basis that the risk of not taking that action far outweighs the likely consequences of it. Are we really saying that there no circumstances whatsoever in which, in order to prevent carnage, torturing suspects for information is justified? If so, then I can understand why torture has been made illegal. However I have a feeling that all the illegality in the world wouldn't prevent us using such methods if the stakes were high enough.
I'm not questioning the worthy aims behind making torture illegal as much as I am the contradictions apparent in making that argument.