Hm...
Just heard today about this detainee bill thing from Lloyd today. He asked me to write about it, rather than rant/respond in the IM window, so I guess I'll jot down a few thoughts here.
Basically what I heard about this is that because of this bill torture for interrogation is now legal here in the US as a legitimate way to obtain information from captured terrorists, etc. These methods have been unofficially used in the past, and are now legal.
From the look of things, the view of "the ends justify the means" seems to be the attitude on how this bill got passed. If the US seems it's necessary to physically or psychologically assault suspects in order to break the will of those captured, there are some seriosu issues to be brought up by this. What are the regulations determining when this is an appropriate method to use? Surely this isn't legalized in all forms of interrogation, since there are cases that are simply to small for it to be necessary to go to such lengths simply to find out more. If this is the case, there will still be a lot of controversy over when such a method is appropriate... if at all.
From the government's standpoint, they have captured suspects who may hold information that will lead them to finally finishing these issues that have been goin on lately, but due to ethical issues the US has, they can't seem to break the wills of those who are in custpdy, since in order to break such wils, the US will need to go beyond what is ethical. psycological trauma and attacks based off of the beliefs of the captured are VERY effective in breaking down one's mental stability, making it easier to extract information. But the costs of using such methods are very steep.
The scars left on those interrogated will never fade, and the hostilities in the Middle East shall rise to higher levels now that we are using their very beliefs as a front to attack them on. This shall cause all sorts of issues to arise and can potentially make our stuation a lot worse due to the way people can respond to this decision. I can already see that there will be a case where the interrogated suspect is deemed innocent and is now forever scarred by the psycological and possibly physical attacks. Imagine what this decision will do to the way people see America. We held the reputation of being a land of opportunity, where the system is fair and just....
Just look how far we've deviated from that in the name of "justice."
By looking at the possible outcomes of making the decision to legalize torture, America also sends out a message, whether consciously or not, that we will go to whatever measures necessary to obtain our objective (even if it means revoking the natural rights of people). This is not a message "liberators" want to portray. It says that ethics comes secondary to objectives. The ends justify the means. That statement does not take into consideration the aftereffects once the ends have been met. The aftereffects of this decision cannot be stopped once put into motion. In fact, it may already be too late to stop these effects, since the US even CONISIDERED the bill, it shows the morals of this nation (or at least its government) are weakening. These effects are already in motion, since here we are, writing about how easily one decision can change the way people view the nation.