What do you have to say for yourself ?
I think the phrasing of the question is a bit biased...
Oh ..... I got it all wrong.... I thought you meant water boarding heretics, disobedient bishops, priests....I'm all for that!
"There is a consensus that waterboarding has saved countless lives."
Is there? Can you prove that? Can you name 1 terror attack that was stopped by torture? There are claims but NEVER specifics. Let's have some specifics. Or do you mean that people who are ok with torture claim that, despite reports (from people who HAVE been tortured) that people who are tortured will eventually say anything they think their torturers want them to say.
"If someone believes it to be intrinsically wrong, he or she has to oppose it regardless of how many lives it'd save, be it 5 or 5 billion."
Sort of like embryonic stem cell research and therepeutic cloning.
It has to do with the dignity (in the profoundest sense) of the individual.
Counting who might benefit from wrongdoing is just situational ethics all dressed up in self-justifying hysteria.
And, yeah, the wording of the poll was more than a tad tendentious.
Waterboarding my butt. If it will save American lives take them apart with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers.
You can bill me for the propane!
What is waterboarding in this context? All I get is the image of a guy coasting behind a boat.
Gerald would you waterboard your cats?
Obviously you can not help but had to open the cafeteria again.
Why not simply following church advise?
"I thought you meant water boarding heretics, disobedient bishops, priests....I'm all for that!
thomas moore | 12.11.07 - 8:30 pm | # "
"Lovely" people around here
I added a second poll, whether one deems it torture or not.
If waterboarding is done for sadistic reasons, with deliberate intent to inflict intense pain on another human being, then it is torture; and torture is intrinsically evil.
However, if waterboarding is used as a necessary interrogation technique in order to obtain information that will save innocent lives then it is not torture and not intrinsically evil.
A similar distinction can be made between murder and killing in self-defense. Whereas murder involves the intent to kill an innocent human being without justification, and thus is evil, killing in self-defense is morally permissible when necessary to stop an attack that threatens grave bodily injury or death. The difference in intent between intending to kill and intending to stop an attack makes the difference in the moral analysis.
The difference in intent between waterboarding for the sake of taking pleasure in someone's suffering and for the sake of saving other lives also makes the difference in the moral analysis.
Gerald:
Consequentialism ("doing evil so that good may result") is against Catholic teaching. Read some St Thomas Aquinas on this. (I prefer Mark Shea's clear moral judgment on this question btw.)
Anything that causes a person to fear for his life is torture.
I concur with Uto's questions:
People who are tortured will say anything you want them to say. How do you know it's true what they are saying?
and (in a bow to Consequentialism)
Where are the proofs that waterboarding has "saved countless lives"?
Waterboarding is a staple of the military's SERE (Survival, Escape, Resistance, and Evasion) training. Anybody who wants is an aviator or in another high risk position goes through this. It is not torture.
I had a friend who spent a year in Castro's prisions for publishin an underground newspaper critical of the regime. The Communists injected radioactive iodine into his thyroid to increase his metabolism. That is torture.
Maybe I should have asked in addition:
Assume waterboarding saved a million people from death. Assume waterboarding constitutes torture. Do you approve of its use in this case ?
It's tricky to get the question right since there are three aspects
1. Is it torture
2. Is it effective
3. Do you approve of it
a) despite it being torture
or
b) because you don't think it's
torture
Whew !
Hmmm, interesting results.
Seems most respondents believe water boarding to be torture, and yet most are okay with the torture.
Reminds me of the death penalty, where most people say "in certain circumstances" they are okay with it even though they are generally against it. Humans.
the is it torture question was posted later, it's not representative yet.
It's hard to speculate how one would react. If someone held my family captive somewhere, I'm quite sure I wouldn't contend myself with politely asking for their location and being denied the information. How far I'd go, I can't say.
"If it will save American lives take them apart with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers."
Something that must be factored in to these debates:
If we ever get involved in a conventional war with a party minimally respectful of the Geneva Convention, they could waterboard our boys in uniform and throw all these "waterboarding is not torture" arguments back in our face.
How many lives will that cost?
The government, in its infinite wisdom, will torture some of the wrong people. How many lives will that cost?
Utilitarianism is a double-edged sword, I like slicing it in the right direction for a change.
One more thing: if our troops are captured and waterboarded, for intelligence purposes, were they tortured?
I can say yes. Could those who say "no" explain why their apologias for waterboarding aren't endangering servicemen?
It's a difficult area - to some, yelling at someone or threatening them with the death penalty might be "over the line". Every "Law & Order" interrogation might be too much. It's a wide field between the extremes.
I wonder if waterboarding is now useless anyway, since every terrorist by now knows that they don't actually drown you.
This is America. I thought we ere supposed to be able such practices.
Well, many people say abortion saves the lives of many American (women). So I guess it's ok, now; doing evil is ok if you put it that way.
Psychological pressure is fine, but this sounds over the line.
I'm glad I'm from a country where we are discussing the use of so called waterboarding and grapple with important decisions regarding its usage. It shows that we still have at least a little bit of a collective conscience left.
Many countries/regimes couldn't give a rat's behind about Geneva conventions. Yet they would be the first to cry foul if we violated them....hypocrites!
It's torture. The body's reaction to difficulty breathing can be very distressing.
1) Is a Clown Mass torture?
2) If so, would you submit terrorists to it in order to gain information, even if you knew that it would cause them never to become Catholics?
The number of lives saved by torture is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Catholics can ever call torture a moral good. Torture can never be called a moral good. Circumstances, consequences do not change this. A cup of water drawn from a poisoned well does not become potable simply b/c I need it to be potable or b/c I'm a good person with all the right intentions. There is no way to draw clean water from a poisoned well...
Fr. Philip, OP
I remember the images of men and women falling to their deaths from the World Trade Center. I don't think the people who caused that are going to respect prisoners. And while we're on that subject, what happened to the American soldiers captured by Mohammedans in Iraq?
People only refuse to call it torture out of some naive desire to assume the U.S. would never commit torture. Of course it's torture; don't be ridiculous. As torture, it is completely inconsistent with a Catholic ethic. It is a spit in the face of human dignity. It must be opposed every bit as much as abortion.
I wonder if waterboarding is now useless anyway, since every terrorist by now knows that they don't actually drown you.
No. Because suffocation is suffocation. If someone wraps saran wrap around your face, a promise that they will stop right at that line where you would die would be of little comfort. I'm as conservative as they come and want to fight terroists aggessively, but I say we need to condemn these techniques that dehumanize both victim and perpetrator as the monstrosity that they are.
Well if it's ok with Nancy Pelosi (she approved of it) then it must be ok, right lefty trolls? In all seriousness, it depends on the stakes involved, a "facts and circumstances" test if you will. Tom
Torture is roundly condemned by the Church in strict terms. IF it is torture, there are no circumstances it is morally acceptable, since torture is an intrinsic evil.
Does waterboarding respect the full humanity of the person being waterboarded? Does it treat them like the incarnated Christ dwells within them? Would you do it if Jesus were standing next to you?
The number of lives that might be saved is of no consequence. We may never do evil so that good may come of it.
Kevin, if no one is injured, disfigured, dies or is mentality damaged as a result of water boarding then is it really torture. It looks on the face of it a safe technique that pivots off involuntary fear of gagging. As to whether it is morally wrong I think Mark Bauman makes some good points.
CCC
Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.
So, is waterboarding physical violence?
Physical violence is any deliberate action that directly impairs the victim's physical integrity
So, is water boarding physical violence?
I would find it difficult to judge this one.
If the phantom, unproven "saving American lives" is the justification for behavior, how about cutting off the fingers and limbs - one by one - of the detainee's children in order to extract information from him?
"I wonder if waterboarding is now useless anyway, since every terrorist by now knows that they don't actually drown you."
Since when does the government inform us of deaths inflicted by CIA agents? Information might not come out even when the government, in its infinite competence, gets the wrong guys.
for what it's worth: my husband was waterboarded in the SERE school Mario mentioned above...he seemed to think of it as Scare Tactics not torture.
This is war. It is not theology class. I'm biased. I was three blocks away from the WTC on 9/11. I attended too many funerals. This place was like a war zone (dust, smoke, rubble, troops) for months after. I remember my reaction: how 'normal' it felt when I went uptown for meetings. It would surely be preferable if there were no war.
Mr. Augustinus: Illegitimi non carborundum (non-school/pig Latin "don't let the bastards wear you down."). It was Gen'l. Vinegar Joe Stillwell's motto in Burma during the consequentialist outrage that evil America perpetrated against the benificent Empire of Dai Nippon in the 1940's. We all KNOW that "doing evil so that good may result IS AGAINST CHURCH TEACHING!!!!!" Since when, 1963??
Dulce bellum inexpertis, another non-school Latin phrase that describes the growing clache of ex-cathedra hypocrits (pacifist, isolationist America-hating traitors) feverishly working on their post-doctoral degrees in moral superiority, who say America is totally evil because America 'tortures' (seems for them, 30 seconds of pouring water on a murderer's ugly mug overshadows 46 million abortions, 1,500 yearly infanticides, cloning, euthanasia, stem cell farming, sodomic privileges, etc.). I bet they will use this torture-thing to rationalize voting for the abortion candidates. That happens every two years!!!
I read "Veritatis Splendor", WTF does this mean?: "without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions"??? Then, in the next sentence it reverses that sentence - the only one that made any sense in the entire document. And, "treat laborers as mere instruments of profit"????? WTF????? That's equal to homicide/genocide????
"80. Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object."(131) The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat laborers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons:"
I was born in 1950. Korea, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam (my war), 1973 Israeli War, Cold War, Grenada, Nicaragua, Gulf War I and II, Afghanistan. My country has been at war nearly my entire life. Peace would be preferable. But there is no peace. Retreat and surrender (chains and slavery) are not options.
I wonder if people would support waterboarding if the U.S. troops were subjected to it. Also, let's no forget that there have been people believed to be terrorists who later turned out to be innocent.
Frankly, I think the second question is so biased as to be laughable. Who the heck were the 'terrorists' who 'gave up vital information' after being waterboarded? There are many other examples of people giving false information after being tortured. Waterboarding is certainly NOT 100% effective, so don't pretend that it is.
I suggest you change the last question to just "Do you approve of this interrogation / torture technique?". THEN the poll's results could be a bit more objective... as it is, I think it's shameful.
If the survival of the country depended on it, I think few people would not make a terrorist panic for a couple of minutes. It's easy to say "it's always evil, can never do it", in real life things aren't as clear-cut.
Gerald, don't go down the road of beating this issue to death. (yes that is a bad pun).
The subject of torture won't be resolved on a blog, and the only result will be that you will make your fine blog as boring and unreadable as Mark Shea's after he committed his life to the subject.
If you were told that if you allowed 10 abortions to be had would save America, but you had to be the one administering the abortion, and if you didn't, 100 million would die, would you do it?
This is the first time I've posted on the subject.
Abortion is not the same as mock-drowning a terrorist for a couple of minutes. Even if you consider that torture it's not the same.
The description of this technique described in "The Independent" and on Wikipedia contradicts what Kiriakou described on cnn.com:
"There is a bladder, or a water source, above the head with water pouring down on the mouth, so no water is going into your mouth, but it induces a gag reflex and makes you feel like you're choking," Kiriakou said.
T. Shaw: if you believe there's no choice, you're already a chained slave.
1. Is it torture: Yes
2. Is it effective: There are mixed responses--when a human being is under that amount of stress, they may say anything. This is why, back in the days of using torture during the inquisitions, torture was used to extract corroboration with an accusation, not to extract new information. Also, the confession had to be repeated later under oath and without the use of torture. (Not defending the usage by the inquisitions, just stating the case.)
3. Do you approve of it: No. I think it's clearly a violation of human dignity. And it does harm to the souls of those who are performing torture.
Go git em TShaw...and Ma Tucker you make a refined point which will largely be lost or ignored by many. Otherwise, it works on my kids.
To A Non:
"If you were told that if you allowed 10 abortions to be had would save America, but you had to be the one administering the abortion, and if you didn't, 100 million would die, would you do it?"
If the ten babies in utero were the direct cause of the threat to the 100 million innocent people, then yes indeed I would kill them because doing so would immediately remove the threat to the 100 million and would be done with the intent of self-defense. Of course, such a scenario is almost an impossibility because ten babies in utero cannot pose a hostile threat to 100 million other people.
If the ten babies in utero were not the direct cause of the threat to the 100 million innocent people, then I would not kill them. I imagine a scenario being that a moral monster has several nuclear weapons ready to detonate in large population centers but promises that were I to abort ten babies he would not detonate the bombs. Although, if I could take the moral monster at this word, aborting ten babies would in that case save 100 million lives the act would not be morally permissible because the ten babies are themselves innocent rather than hostile. It is the moral monster who is hostile, so I would have to direct my efforts to save the 100 million people at him and him alone.
In the former scenario, the ten babies in utero are the hostiles, so it would be morally permissible to kill them.
Back to waterboarding: if a captured terrorist is a hostile who is directly involved in a ticking time bomb scenario, and if lesser methods of extracting life-saving information are of no avail, then I believe that a technique such as waterboarding would be morally permissible because the recipient is not innocent and is directly threatening the lives of innocent people. Waterboarding would be an effort to stop the attack.
Waterboarding on an innocent, or when unnecessary, would be immoral.
"Waterboarding my butt. If it will save American lives take them apart with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers."
There's some serious Catholic moral reflection...
The very fact that one would even countenance this kind of discussion of torture and cruel and degrading punishment and pain inflicted on anybody leads me to wonder if there is any Christian dimension left to this blog. It also makes me think that those who inflict terror on our societies have won because they have brought us to adopt their techniques.
Christ too was the victim of torture and execution…. on the part of “legitimate” authority. There are many wolves here masquerading as sheep and true Christians. Life is a seamless gift from God let us respect it from conception to natural death. Let us respect it in every human being. Otherwise it is life itself and our sharing in it that is diminished.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I enjoy watching the old Star Treks and this just makes me laugh to think what Spock would say. I mean most people would say torture is bad. Most people would say waterboarding is torture. Most people would say waterboarding is OK.
"Interesting."
To marcus:
"There are many wolves here masquerading as sheep and true Christians. Life is a seamless gift from God let us respect it from conception to natural death. Let us respect it in every human being. Otherwise it is life itself and our sharing in it that is diminished."
Precisely because life is a gift from God, that is why we have a moral obligation to defend it from attack, even using violence when necessary to defend it. To refuse to defend innocent human life, a-la pacifism, is NOT to respect human life; it is to disregard the value of human life under the guise of taking a morally superior stance.
Question:
Why is an ostensibly Catholic website, named to suggest wholehearted acceptance of the Magisterium, fostering resistance to, and encouraging mockery of, the unambiguous teachings of the Catholic Church?
Simple really - I don't think it constitutes torture. Not that I cheer it on, but if there is (or were) a choice between not getting vital information or getting it via scaring the crap out of a terrorist for a couple of minutes, I'd certainly choose the life of countless people.
Mark Bauman: refusal to torture is not pacifism.
Try it on Bush and Cheney.
I always love it when people say that strong interrogation techniques shouldn't be used because you NEVER know if the info they give is accurate.
However, I would venture to say that if the one interrogated gives info that bombs are being produced at such-and-such an address and this proves to be the case, then the info can be trusted (as seems to have happened a number of times).
More and more it looks like liberal Democrats DO consider our U.S. Constitution a suicide pact for the United States.
Actually many of the sentimentalist who regard yelling at someone as torture have neglected the wording found in the catechism. Years ago in a college theology class this was a great source of lecture and socratic teaching. Anyway, along with a few comments rightly addressing whether this even constitutes torture, the catechism does not address the use of torture for purposes of saving other lives. There is a body of theological discourse on this from differing points of view, but strictly speaking the catechism's very specific use of the term "confession" definitionally means in context a prohibition against torture to extract an admission of fault. The use of torture on a person known to have evil intent to slaughter innocents and thus to save lives, to avoid anything from saving one person to saving the world from a nuclear holocaust, is for prudential consideration. It most definitely does matter contextually, reading the catechism carefully, the intended use of the so-called torture.
Gerald:
There you've said it:
"if there is (or were) a choice between not getting vital information or getting it via scaring the crap out of a terrorist for a couple of minutes, I'd certainly choose the life of countless people"; if waterboarding is torture, you're for it.
This is directly CONTRARY to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2297:
"Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity."
So the Cafeteria is open.
"To refuse to defend innocent human life, a-la pacifism, is NOT to respect human life; it is to disregard the value of human life under the guise of taking a morally superior stance."
Yes, exactly! And they, and especially the policitians they support and the media members who influence them, will have to answer for every innocent person they've condemned to a horrible death because of their "morally superior stance."
Yes, Uto, if there were such a choice as planet-wide doom or scaring a terrorist for a few minutes, I'd do it. Heh. Who wouldn't.
Citing the teachings of the Catholic Church is a red herring as regards this topic. If it were so heinous automatic excommunication would be promised any practitioners of waterboarding. The fact that it's not speaks volumes about the dilemma it poses for the Church leadership.
As for the repugnance expressed by many here, acceptable actions in any war are based on subjective criteria. Example: the use of submarines by the Germans in WWI evoked global horror and revulsion, it was seen as inhumane and not to be condoned.
Fast forward a few decades to Dec.8, 1941 when the only members of the Pacific Fleet left largely untouched by the Pearl Harbor attack were subs. The first command that went out was for unrestricted warfare. DUH! If not for the submarine force we might have had an entirely different outcome to that war.
This isn't just my partisan thinking (after 22 years on subs I've got it!), it's historical fact. Check it out.
Morally acceptable tactics change with the times. War is indeed Hell.
Uto,
Your inapplicable quote of #2297 shows you've gotten it entirely wrong. Instead, it proves how one's intellectual capabilities are so easily compromised when emotional moralizing and judgmentalism is allowed to prevail over fact and clarity. Waterboarding is not used to extract confessions, nor is it used to punish guilty parties, nor is it used to frighten the enemy, nor is it used to express hatred.
Although it succeeds in scaring the enemy in giving up the goods it doesn't actually harm him - and that makes it a great substitute for TRUE torture.
Remember, like it or not we are in a war of survival.
So, the purpose of waterboarding is to save lives. As for finding documented instances where it has done just that, they have been reported in detail so often that the lot of you who deny this is the case are shown to be either lazy in your research or liars about what you say is not so. Don't try to pass it off on others to find these cases; it's no one else's responsibility but your own to find these instances that are amply documented and there to be found. But then, why would any of you be honest enough to actually do that. You are all invested in remaining in your echo chamber to repeat the charge waterboarding has never been effective and that there are no documented instances of its success. Why would you do any heavy lifting that refutes your own arguments?
As for the several references to Mark Shea (who shares your misguided views), I had heard so much postive commentary about his blog that today I was profoundly disappointed when I visited & read his rant on this subject. Like the lot of morally confused surrender monkeys play-acting as prophets in your own minds on this combox, Mark deploys emotional judgmentalism (a provence of the right, I thought) in a masquerade of reasoned logic to make his case.
As for the argument waterboarding might lead to retribution visited on our troops if captured, you folks are showing your (willful) ignorance of what has actually transpired throught this war. Our Islamic enemies in the field seem to find waterboarding inadequate to their purpose. We know this because they have almost always beheading our captured troops instead of trying to scare them with a kindergarten tactic like waterboarding (to which our troops are usually subjected as part of their preparation).
Unfortunately, we haven't yet determined how to prepare our troops for decapitation, if captured. Do you suggest that we suspend waterboarding so our enemies will suspend real torture & decapitation?
I thought not.
BTW, my Catholic conscience that I'm bound to follow - no matter what YOU believe - informs me I'm to torture and even possibly kill the enemy if it would save the lives of you and your family.
Will God forgive me if I let your children die when I could have prevented it by waterboarding an illegal combatant prisoner?
"It's easy to say "it's always evil, can never do it", in real life things aren't as clear-cut."
That's what apologists for evil always say.
Sorry to be so harsh, but I'm sick of tolerating people who have been confused by fog generators.
If our military advisors in, say, Colombia, were captured and waterboarded for intelligence information, could you condemn this as torture? I could.
Quit providing ready-made excuses for the criminals of the future.
It's torture; it's ineffective; and it's morally wrong.
Rationalize; parse; equivocate; obfuscate...the reality is not goin' to change.
This is more like a neo-con site, American imperialist propaganda site; not an orthodx Catholic one. Pure and simple.
You all sadden me.
"Yes, Uto, if there were such a choice as planet-wide doom or scaring a terrorist for a few minutes, I'd do it. Heh. Who wouldn't."
.
Well, let's say that I wouldn't. You missed your profession, you should be a spin doctor.
.
BTW. Abortion of Hitler lasted 10 minutes and abortion of Stalin lasted for 15 minutes. As abortion of these two saved millions of lives, would you, GERALD, approve abortions? If there was such a choice as planet-wide doom or a removal of some women's tissue, would you do it?
One bit of historical trivia that might highlight the ambivalence of the Church on whatever is deemed morally reprehensible at different times; in 1139 the Second Lateran Council outlawed the use of crossbows and longbows by Christians. That seemed to only apply to other Christians though, as square headed crossbow bolts were subsequently approved by the Pope for use against Muslims. Can't shoot a bolt without a crossbow now, can ya?
And for those who might bleat that we're now more morally evolved, PUH-LEEZE!
Human nature hasn't changed since Cain and Abel, just pick up your local newspaper on any given day and find out what our brothers and sisters are doing to one another.
By comparison waterboarding is a frat house antic.
"Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity."
No where in this definition is there an automatic prohibition against the use of toture to save innocent lives. The so called "inherant evil" aspect of torture underlying this discussion comes as a source from narrative contained the usccb version of the "american" catechism, a document rich in incremental departures from other Catholic teachings, see and compare for eg subsidiarity in the american catechism and Rerrum Novarum.
You are a Catholic, aware of the damnation associated with "inherant evil". You are too extract from a muhammeden scientist the only source of a virus which will kill all infidels and shiites, inasmuch as al queda has been innoculated. Time is of the essence. Waterboarding is, to be assumed, effective. According to the sentimentalist, it would not be heroic in a theological sense for you to risk eternal damnation if you die before having confessed your sin of having saved humanity. We could go on with a number of other scenarios and perhaps a discussion about real torture...you know like cutting off parts of a person (a favorite pastime of real terrorists) but this affection for sanctimony and handwringing over waterboarding which has and will save innocent lives is just a remarkable condition of post modernism.
"choice as planet-wide doom or scaring a terrorist for a few minutes"
Why do people defending the indefensible always pose such preposterous scenarios? For those defending abortion, it is always about an incestuous rape of a 13 yr. old by a murderous father. For those defending torture, it is always "planet-wide doom". Talk about terror tactics!
In reality, 9/11, for example, could have been averted by following up on plainly evident leads.
"Citing the teachings of the Catholic Church is a red herring"
Hardly. Particularly at a putatively "Catholic" website.
A nuclear device going off in a city would suffice, too. You'd just let everyone die to avoid getting your hands dirty. But, you could proudly say that you stood up for principle.
"Why do people defending the indefensible always pose such preposterous scenarios?"
Because uto the "preposterous scenarious" as you call them are a socratic tool for fleshing out the issue and understanding it better, and the "preposterous scenarios" as you label them are here and coming...you know like blowing up the World Trade Centers. Finally, i am not at all defending the indefensible, and those who are on the front lines of these important theological and policy issues are defending...you. You are incorrect on this matter of using waterboarding to save innocent lives on two related theological levels: definitionally and contextually. I'm sorry the effort of drawing out the point through "preposterous scenarios" is lost on you.
Isn't waterboarding a form of self-defense, in terms of war?
Gerald,
You are shocking on this subject.
"You'd just let everyone die to avoid getting your hands dirty": such a shallow notion of recognizing the dignity of each individual, such a perverse notion of following Church teaching.
"you could proudly say that you stood up for principle": you are so scornful of those principles coming from Christ and the Magisterium.
Are you a faithful Catholic?
I find your remarks on this subject and the attitudes they disclose appalling.
"A nuclear device going off in a city would suffice, too. You'd just let everyone die to avoid getting your hands dirty. But, you could proudly say that you stood up for principle."
Anyone who abandons principle for fear of death is a coward. Christ has conquered, be not afraid.
My father (not my mother) would have let me die if only a blood transfusion could have saved me back when we were JW's (they're agnostic now). You'd let your children die if the only way to save them were to mock-drown a guy. I prefer pragmatism. I'm not fond of either position.
Interesting poll, Gerald. Let's see, 40 percent of your readers claim waterboarding is not torture and 55 percent claim that it is justifiable on consequentualist grounds ("depending on circumstances"). That is interesting in itself, for it assumes a not insignificant number who recognize it as torture (and this an intrinsically evil act) are still willing to defend it. Gerald, you are obviously not doing a good job keeping that cafeteria door closed! What would you think if you saw such statistics for abortion instead of torture?
BTW, for what waterboarding actually is, and why there is no doubt whatsoever that it is torture, follow the link in this post to an account by ex-SERE director Malcolm Nance: http://vox-nova.com/2007/10/31/o...-waterboarding/
.
Key quote:
"Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again."
Minion - I believe the CIA guy described it differently. In any case, I'm sure waterboarding is no fun and that it is actually horrifying. My point is that IF there were a situation of a choice between waterboarding a terrorist OR having, say, Houston be atomized, I' nonetheless approve of it, since the lives of millions are the greater good than the comfort of a terrorist. I'd PREFER getting the information by appealing to his humanity.
I shouldn't even have brought up this question, since next to no one seems to know what I mean. When faced with two evils, choose the lesser. I'm not saying waterboarding is a good thing.
I certainly want a president who's a "consequentialist", a pragmatist rather than someone who'd sacrifice me for his religious beliefs.
Anyway, I give up, this is becoming torture.
"I certainly want a president who's a "consequentialist", a pragmatist rather than someone who'd sacrifice me for his religious beliefs."
Thus opens the cafeteria...
I am not sure if my question came through...
So I will ask it again.
A pro-choice terrorist wants to have you to abort a child. The terrorist gives you a woman who wants an abortion, and tells you "give her an abortion, or else I will blow up New York." They have a device in their hand connected to a nuclear bomb which will go off if you do not give the abortion (and that is something which cannot be prevented).
Do you give the woman an abortion?
....because a president's religious beliefs may well not be my own. The president's duty is to defend the Constitution and this republic. If he, eg, refuses to do something to avert a catastrophe because it's a religious holiday for his denomination, he'd not be fit to be president. Or, let's say a president would start global war in order to speed up the "Second Coming" or the arrival of the "Twelfth Imam".
The presidential oath:
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Gerald: you know what consequentialism means, and you know that the Church completely opposes it. It is never licit to support an intrinsically evil action so that some good might come of it. Read Veritatis Splendour. And, no, you cannot choose the lesser of two evils, and you cannot ever choose evil in the first place. And by the way, this line of moral reasoning derives from the fundamental natural law, not from a politicians "religious beliefs". Funny, Gerald, that argument is used mostly on the left.
I love waterboarding. It's so much fun. I went for the first time this past summer. Hard to get the hang of it at first, but once you get up you're fine!
Perhaps this will provide some clarity:
The question "Is waterboarding torture?" is as unanswerable as the question "Is killing murder?" because more information is necessary in order to make the analysis.
Sometimes killing is murder; sometimes it is not. Sometimes waterboarding could be torture; sometimes it could not be.
There is immoral killing, which is murder; but there is also moral killing, which is not murder.
There could be immoral waterboarding, which would be torture; but there could also be moral waterboarding, which would not be torture.
Acknowledging that murder is always wrong does not lead to the conclusion that killing is always wrong. Similarly, acknowledging that torture is always wrong does not lead to the conclusion that waterboarding is always wrong.
Are the readers of this blog Catholic?
What kind of question is that? "Do you agree with waterboarding"?
Why don't you ask instead "Do you agree with abortion?" That would be more suitable for this blog.
The cafeteria is definitely not closed!
Go read what the Church teaches on torture and then I'll be really interested in hearing how the ~30% or so defend their agreement on torture.
Poor catechesis! Poor catechesis!
This is war. It is not theology class.
I know. One has to stop from being a Christian when one is in "war"
Uto--Thanks for the quote. Not in the quote was something like "or to gain information from proven evil people in order to save innocent human lives" Thus one can presume that even torture is OK for this purpose. But even the definition of torture is vague. A surgeon's incision many times does immense violence to the human body in order to effect good as an end result.
My biggest gripe on this whole issue is that so many on the political left call just about any strong interrogation or imprisonment technique to save lives: "Torture!!"
Sometimes I think it is more a case of how much the political Left under the hate-filled leadership of George Soros has fallen prey to an almost irrational all-consuming hatred of President Bush. Amnesiac Dems refuse to remember he is not doing anything even close to what President FDR (Dems saintly hero) did after Pearl Harbor--the 1940's 9-11-- to protect our country.
In fact, the FDR WWII Dem dictatorship rounded up all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast who had been born here for 3 or 4 generations, confiscated all their property, and incarcerated all family members in harsh, inhuman concentration camps somewhere in the Utah desert.
Yet to head off any such FDR retribution against Moslems in the country President Bush immediately spoke up against blaming all American Moslems for 9-11 and even had publicized meetings with American Moslem imams and leaders.
Maybe Bush should have done what FDR did--whip up a frenzy of hatred based on a worst kill disaster than Pearl Harbor--against Moslems--then maybe the mild things (compared to FDR) he did later to protect our country wouldn't seem so (from the left's point of view) so horrendous.
I just think it's more humane to save a million by making one evil man panic for a few minutes, if that choice presented itself.
I am talking about a desperate situation, not torture as an everyday means. Obviously, the greater good would be the survival of millions. At least in my book. I can only tell you what my conscience tells me. I certainly would hope my president would agree.
I'm not saying it's good to waterboard, simply less bad if the alternative were millions dying. While I understand the reasoning of the opponents of my position, I simply cannot agree with it. This may make me, in a twist of irony, a "Cafeteria Catholic" to some. I'd just rather have abusing a terrorist for a bit on my conscience than the death of millions. I'd never have thought that someone would decide differently.
Gerald,
You're being so theatrical! "Survival of millions"! Settle down. There has never been a confession about anything that was just about to happen and that involved the survival of even hundreds. Never. In the history of the world.
In fact, Gerald, as you begin to torture someone, remember that you would have no way of knowing what a man knows until he tells you. You're assuming that anyone you collar can creditably spill the beans on an action about to take place that's going to kill "millions". You must be writing a screen play for Matt Damon.
You'd feel a lot calmer if you'd just follow the teachings of the Church.
But, alas, you say, "I can only tell you what my conscience tells me." Suddenly, on this blog, any unformed or ill-formed "conscience" is King. So, you'd support those priests whose consciences tell them that sodomy is a gift from God? Or those ex-nuns who call themselves "priests" because their consciences have developed independently of Church teaching?
Under no circumstances should a professional army use torture to advance its intelligence, firstly because it is morally reprehensible and secondly because it isn't effective. No combatant would ever surrender himself to a military that is renowned for using torture (american military)the knowledge that his enemies employ methods of torture will only shore up his resolve to win the fight or die trying, thus taking more friendlies down with him. Under most circumstances most soldiers or other named fighters don't have any information of use after a few hours as most codes, frequencies etc. change every 12 hours, or more frequently under certain conditions. Finally I know I would tell anyone anything to avoid being tortured.
Paratrooper
Calling an evil good because you desire its effects is the height of relativism.
Your reasoning here is not Catholic.
Actually, I said it was the lesser evil, not good.
Gerald:
"I can only tell you what my conscience tells me."
The rallying cry of Sister Jeannine Gramick, many National Catholic Reporter subscribers, Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful members, heretics and schismatics throughout history and cafeteria catholics worldwide.
The question "Is waterboarding torture?" is as unanswerable as the question "Is killing murder?" because more information is necessary in order to make the analysis.
Sometimes killing is murder; sometimes it is not. Sometimes waterboarding could be torture; sometimes it could not be.
There is immoral killing, which is murder; but there is also moral killing, which is not murder.
There could be immoral waterboarding, which would be torture; but there could also be moral waterboarding, which would not be torture.
Acknowledging that murder is always wrong does not lead to the conclusion that killing is always wrong. Similarly, acknowledging that torture is always wrong does not lead to the conclusion that waterboarding is always wrong.
Mark Bauman | 12.13.07 - 1:06 pm | #
Dead on which is why the catechetical definition of torture must be carefully read for it allows for circumstances such as you say. That definition prohibits the use of terror to extract a confession (as in an admission of guilt), for pleasure to appease hatred, as a tool of terror, or as a form of punishment. The issue here is the intended use of waterboarding (assumed by many at least semantically to be torture) to obtain information which will save lives from known terrorists.
Gerald,
Gerald
You really need to do your homework, or temporarily shut down the blogspot.
By the way, I was shocked to see how the poll in question was adding something like 70 votes a minute, condoning waterboarding, towards the end of Wednesday night.
Wonder which Bushie visitor to the site was stacking the vote?
Waterboarding is NOT torture, neither is loud music, sleep depravation, or fingernails on a chalkboard.
Terrorists are NOT uniformed service members.
Terrorists are NOT protected by the Geneva Convention.
Foreigners on foreign soil are NOT protected by the US Constitution.
Bob must not be a Catholic. The Church regards torture as "an offense against mankind" and never condones it, no matter the purpose or hoped for result.
Before you say "but what about churchmen who may have participated?", read #2298 of the Catechism.
The Church never condones torture or the doing of an evil in order to achieve a possible good.
"You'd let your children die if the only way to save them were to mock-drown a guy. I prefer pragmatism. I'm not fond of either position."
Is mock-drowning ever torture?
Torture: safe, legal, rare?
Don't conflate killing an innocent person with putting pressure on a terrorist. If you judge a terrorist's well-being to be more important than innocent people's lives, that's certainly your right. To me, that's fanaticism.
Gerald:"If you judge a terrorist's well-being to be more important than innocent people's lives, that's certainly your right. To me, that's fanaticism."
Who did that? To me, that's a straw man.
http://www.splendoroftruth.com/c...ives/
008568.php
Almost completely overlooked is the mountain of military and intelligence evidence that torture-techniques such as waterboarding DO NOT yield reliable or veridical information.
Heck, drown me and I'll you that I solely am responsible all of the overzealous jingoism on the American Catholic Right masquerading itself as holier-than thou orthodoxy and clear thinking.
I cannot believe this is even a debate on a "Catholic" blog! Is this a joke?
I have spent most of my life fighting against abortion and twilight zone enough, I am hearing the SAME arguments from so called "Catholics" except for torture!
We are not Protestants people. When in doubt, Gerald, you submit to your bishop. Otherwise, you can do what countless millions have done before, LEAVE your Church and make your own. These arguments here are not new. Same ol' same ol' The end DOES NOT justify the means in a Christian's life. Do you got that? The end DOES NOT justify the means.
By the way, DEATH from a Catholic perspective is NOT the worst evil. The loss of one's soul is more painful than physical death. Remember that as you struggle with this issue, Gerald. And what a mockery for all of those Christian martyrs who HAVE chosen to remain faithful to Christ and not their Governments by choosing death of their own families at times rather then commit a grave evil.
I'm not struggling with it. Innocent lives > Terrorist. Simple.
Out of curiosity, do you also think the plane should not be shot down ?
Choosing the death of one's family is immoral. Martyr yourself all you want, you don't have the right to prescribe it for others. You're no different from Jehovah's Witnesses letting their kids die rather than get a blood transfusion. I just didn't think that kind of fanaticism existed in the Catholic Church, and it doesn't really, outside of the blogosphere.
I'm no pacifist, I'm not Amish. If someone threatens my life, I'm ready to shoot him. If someone attacks my country, I'm ready to defend her. All that is common sense.
Apparently some commenters here missed the information all over all the news channels that, indeed, waterboarding has been responsible for breaking up at least 15 plots and saving at least hundreds of innocent lives and possibly thousands. It seems that the left's definition of "torture" is: "ANY physical technique that successfully gets information to save lives."
I say this because all that I see from the left is condemnation of anything our president and our military does to protect us. I have yet to see a listing of what they consider acceptable interrogation techniques. (One comedian said they don't dare say because all they will approve is to tickle someone, but not enough to make them wet their pants. Then it becomes the cruel and inhuman "tickle torture," which must always be condemned.)
Gerald:"You're no different from Jehovah's Witnesses"
Gerald, neither are you in that you reject the teachings of the Magisterium as easily as JWs do. Come to think of it, weren't you a JW yourself until very recently?
"Choosing the death of one's family is immoral" That isn't the choice, Gerald, as you surely must know. The choice is between obeying or disobeying God's Laws as understood by the Church Jesus founded. With all due respect, I don't think you understand that you aren't nominally a Protestant anymore. The name of your blog is misleading in the extreme.
Deacon Bresnahan:"Apparently some commenters here missed the information all over all the news channels that, indeed, waterboarding has been responsible for breaking up at least 15 plots and saving at least hundreds of innocent lives and possibly thousands"
Deacon Bresnahan, name one "plot" the "breaking up" of which through torture saved one life.
"I have yet to see a listing of what they consider acceptable interrogation techniques"
Deacon, that would be anything allowed by International Law and by the Catholic Church.
Apparently some commenters here missed the information all over all the news channels that, indeed, waterboarding has been responsible for breaking up at least 15 plots and saving at least hundreds of innocent lives and possibly thousands.
Apparently you are credulous enough to believe that. Too bad. You certainly have no business being a deacon, as you, and every other evil and vicious conservative supporting torture (yes, waterboarding is torture) is not a Christian. Christ weeps for you, as you serve Satan.
Bob must not be a Catholic. The Church regards torture as "an offense against mankind" and never condones it, no matter the purpose or hoped for result.
Before you say "but what about churchmen who may have participated?", read #2298 of the Catechism.
The Church never condones torture or the doing of an evil in order to achieve a possible good.
Uto | 12.13.07 - 6:58 pm | #
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That's right uto, I'm not catholic, but i did sleep at a Holiday Inn
Express and i did read the catechism and i have had wonderful teachers on moral theology...but while you and radical catholic momma decry the techniques that preserve your sorry arse, misstate Catholic teaching, and rest on your modernistic CNN notions of the USA and the world in which we live while chewing the cud of sentimentality, you can say your prayers of thanks that perhaps an innocent soul is now alive who may one day be fully redeemed in heaven...because someone, somewhere didn't listen to you and your ilk when they got information from a terrorist to save that soul.
We left the *$&#@ JW's almost 20 years ago.
Gerald,
Yes, you said above that they're "agnostic" now and you said somewhere else that you became Catholic in 2005. My point was that Catholics don't undermine and reject the teachings of the Church - as JWs are free to do.
Bob,
I can believe you may have stayed at a Holiday Inn but, had you actually read the Catechism, you'd know that "torture- an offense against mankind" is taken from the index so, no, I don't believe you know or care what the Catholic Church teaches.
"I can believe you may have stayed at a Holiday Inn"---yes my sanctimonious friend uto, there was room at the inn even for the ignorant likes of me. Your musings have become more of a "sin against mankind." But I'm glad you can read an index and from that discern the answers to tough moral theological questions. Now, as i said, give thanks to those willing to prevent the soul of those poor tortured terrorists from committing the heinous crimes they have attempted. (that's what we call a ponderable uto---think about it after having read the index).
Well, Gerald, I am very sorry that you reject your Church's teaching on this issue. Conversion is not a one time event.
Non of those opposed to waterboarding have yet to make the case that IT IS TORTURE. I submit that it is not and it is a fallacious arguement to try and equate physical tourture with waterboarding. They are not the same. Stop being relativist and recognise the difference to physically hurting somebody with Pain that lingers after the "event" and waterboarding which has no lingering pain.
Well, Uto if your prescription to do nothing to a terrorist to save innocent human lives is followed by our government, I hope it is not members of your family (even more: my wife, children, and grandchildren)who are sacrificed on the altar of preserving your erroneous interpretation of the Catechism.
I looked it up and there is no list there specifically stating what procedures are "torture."
And I am still waiting for someone who, like Pavlov's dog, automatically calls any procedures our government uses to gain information to save innocent lives "torture" to state what SPECIFIC courses of action they would allow in interrogations. Those who have terrorists in custody don't have the luxury of preening their consciences by insisting on remaining vague about how to get information to save lives--and saving innocent lives was NOT on the Catechism list of banned reasons for torture (I can bet there was some real debate here among the Catechism's writers, and they wound up leaving this issue open-=-as well as listing specific "tortures"--Thus, whether to consider a certain action "torture" is apparently up to prudential decision by those who have the legal authority to make the decision. And every web site I have seen to have an actual debate on this issue shows a sharp divide between those who consider water-boarding "torture" and those who consider it simply vigorous or strong interrogation. (It can't do too much violence or cause too much damage because all reports indicate that in training some of our special forces are put through it to prepare them for what to expect if captured.)
As for broken up terror plots, the man I saw on at least two news channels (left: CNN, right: Fox) stating there were at least 15 life threatening plots foiled by waterboarding was considered an impeccable source by the interviewer (probably because the one being interviewed wasn't also pushing a book).
However, I am not a fanatic like some, who apparently expect average citizens to sit by the TV with pen in hand, so I can't provide the name (I think it sounded Greek) or the specific details, but there have been many similar interviews and stories over the months.
And I know how cheaply the accusation "liar" (without proof) is thrown around by those on the political left these days. It is a good "out" to use to try to sway people from siding with those making the tough prudential decisions in the real (not ideal) world we live in and where innocent people are constantly purposely targeted by terrorists.
bob,
you may consider for your next vacation a place in which you get not clean white towels, but, instead, clean white jackets, with arms that tie on your backside.
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