Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Your Torture Buffet

Greenwald has an interesting post up describing his long, strange trip down the rabbit hole that is the CIA's Inspector General report on torture and interrogation methods used on detainees.

Remember when you're reading about these techniques - if it's okay for us to do this sort of thing to our detainees, it's okay for, say, Iran to do this kind of thing to Americans detained there. The morality of an action doesn't depend on whether it's the "good" guys or the "bad" guys taking that action. In fact, one might say that what differentiates the "good" guys from the "bad" guys is the morality of their actions. So far we've been kinda sucking at being the "good" guys in this regard.

I think most people reject the abstract idea that the ends justify the means. If you're a supporter of torture, though, you must necessarily believe this.

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