Where I stand on torture, the military(UK as well as US) and other things

As one of my posters about "Sgt" Tahmooressi(hope I got the name spelled right) pointed out, the whole issue of "torture" (esp of terrorists- be during the "War On Terror" nowadays or the NI "Troubles" now mercifully ended) is a separate issue.

So I shall declare my stance on such an issue now - I believe that torture is an inhumane and barbarous practice that is as morally indefensible as unethical medical experiments (pace Tuskegee syphilis experiments, Unit 731 and Joseph Mengele)and that NO excuse can justify it- be it "you have to fight fire with fire/we must become savages to fight savagery/ the ticking time bomb scenario". Societies have successfully put down terrorist insurgencies)some quite protracted - Baader Meinhof Gang/RAF in Germany, ETA in Spain, Provos in NI for my own country- as well as extraordinarily brutal- without recourse to such tactics. After the murder of former Italian PM Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1978, an Italian police chief was asked to sanction the torture of captured terrorists- he replied that whilst Italy would survive the loss of Moro it would NOT survive( presumably as a civilized society) after torture was introduced.

To quote a comment at the end of the 1947 film "Frieda" - "you can't treat people as though they were less than human -without becoming less than human yourself!"

Now for another issue: perceptive observers may have suspected I am less than sympathetic to Tahmooressi due to his background in the US military( to be precise, the United States Marine Corps) and they would be correct in a sense.

So what DO I have against the US military? Nothing that I don't have against Her Majesty 's Forces at times. Whilst I recognize that in both countries, the armed forces have gained the well deserved respect of their respective citizenries at times, respect should NEVER slide into uncritical veneration( the "Our Boys" can do nothing wrong attitude of some commentators- mainly on the political Right- is as bad as the demonizing of them on the Left), as my post s about the Royal Marine convicted of murdering a Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan make clear.

Anybody think as I do?

Terry

ok, I guess?

How else are we gonna get info?

We just need a little bit of chloroform. Then we set their toes on fire.

Release the jimmies.

Jmarshmallow

As Captain Fred Holroyd, a former British Army officer who served in NI during the "Troubles" noted in a BBC documentary "The Unleashing Of Evil" -"counter terror simply does NOT work!"

'Nuff said!

Terry