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17 Dec 2008 10:42 am

In Defense Of Torture, Ctd

A reader writes:

Gerecht, in his response to you, offers one torture justification that cries for amplification: Sixty-five years ago Americans no doubt were responsible for atrocities that shamed all involved, as he rightly points out. But what he fails to add is that those atrocities were committed under battlefield conditions -- not in our prison camps. Such atrocities are to be found in all wars, committed by all involved. The kind of in-prison torture ordered by Bush administration officials, which Gerecht however-indirectly nevertheless defends, was something that even during the darkest days of World War II Americans roundly rejected.

No one doubts that in combat in war, soldiers sometimes crack under intense pressure and commit atrocities against potentially lethal foes. The difference is committing atrocities against people who are already in your custody and under your direct control. Abhorrence at this practice and a deeper understanding of how a free country was not compatible with a government with the power to torture was one of America's founding differences. Until Bush and Cheney.

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