Torture - should we even discuss it?

Mother nature has a way of jolting us into looking more closely at the status quo.

Take the tsunami disaster for example. This disaster has shown how completely unprepared the world is for a truly global problem. Yes there have been some pretty rapid responses from a lot of quarters. The US military was on the scene pretty quickly and millions of dollars (pounds, yen, etc.) were raised around the world in just a few hours. And yet thousands more may die because we were not prepared, despite all the scientific research that told us this could happen. A week after the disaster the UN is still just setting up shop. The status quo.

The finger pointing has already begun, who knew what and did or did not do what when. It had not happened in modern times, there had been no seismic event to jolt the status quo. Hopefully, we will learn from this, question the status quo, and be better prepared next time.

9/11 was another "seismic" event that jolted us into questioning the status quo in many ways. One such area is torture.

Why? Why even discuss it? Many refrain from even using the word, as if its' very utterance would produce the effects the word stands for. In most of us the very word conjures up images so horrible we immediately want to change the subject. We don't even need to discuss it, that argument was settled long ago. The status quo.

For some, 9/11 jolted the status quo and ignited a re-examination of a once taboo subject. You cannot put this genie back in the bottle.

Some want to close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and say, I don't need to discuss something so repugnant and I made up my mind a long time ago. The status quo.

Others want to take another look and still others have already decided to change the status quo.

Even the very definitions of words are being questioned. What is the difference between abuse and torture and are they both wrong? Is either ever justified? And who is a POW and who is an illegal combatant. The UN, after 10 years, still doesn't have a definition of a terrorist. The status quo.

9/11, 3/11 and Beslan jolted the status quo for some but not others. For some their belief is unshakeable, torture is just plain wrong, no ifs ands or buts.

Say one of the captured terrorists from Beslan boasted that Beslan was not the only school targeted and another bomb was set to go off soon at another school somewhere in Russia. During questioning he won't talk. What do you do? Some would say torture in this situation is wrong, no matter what. If they were the parent of child in a threatened Russian school, would they still feel that way?

That's hypothetical. Let's look at a real case.

In Iraq, US forces capture a group of terrorists and during questioning discover that an ambush is planned on US troops within the hour but the captives refuse to give details of where. The Officer in charge has one of the men taken outside, forces him to kneel down, head bowed, while the officer tells the man he will be shot if he doesn't talk. The man refuses and the officer discharges his gun in a barrel of sand next to the captive. Immediately the man talks, the ambush is averted, US soldiers lives are saved and the terrorists captured. The officer is brought up on charges and while cleared of wrong doing, is forced to retire from the military. The status quo.

For those who say, well this wouldn't have happened in the first place if the Americans weren't there "illegally", reverse the players and it still works.

These types of scenarios have been debated many times over the years and the decision has been, that regardless of the loss of life, torture was still wrong.

Regardless of the loss of life? While that may have been true when the numbers killed were small or at most a few dozen, does it still hold true when the numbers increase to thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands? Does it still hold true in a post 9/11, 3/11 and Beslan world? Those scenarios have not been debated, yet.

The older you get the more comfortable the status quo becomes. You say to yourself, I'm old, educated, and I've traveled the world, my beliefs are well founded and proven to me time and again. And, I don't need to take another look at a belief I've held for years. The status quo.

The victims of this tsunami, 9/11, 3/11 and Beslan, remind us that it is our responsibility, no matter how distasteful it is, from time to time to question the status quo.

I'd like to think that all Americans, me included, and indeed most of the world, are against torture. But does that mean that when we are jolted out of the status quo that we should shirk our responsibility to re-examine something so repugnant as torture? 9/11, 3/11 and Beslan were not of our making, we did not change the status quo, terrorist did. And in so doing, like the tsunami, jolted the world into questioning long held beliefs. The status quo.

There are better thinkers and writers on the subject than I. For a great round up, with links, to those people, check out Instapundit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------