A certain attorney general is not satisfied with the way the CIA runs things, According to the attorney general Eric Holder they are going to"iinvestigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspect." Eric Holder is doing a pretty good job making sure that even prisoners won't be tortured for information, but personally I don't see the logic. Why do you capture prisoners and not kill them? Most likely, you either want to use them as a hostage, you want information or maybe you just want a new friend. In this case you're probably aiming for choice number 2, Information, now lets say, you have a uncooperative prisoner you want him to tell you info and he refuses, you beg him, you cajole him, you offer him a plate of your mother's Delicious homemade cookies, He knocks your cookies to the floor. Seeing your mother's cookies soiled you smack the prisoner across the face, and to your surprise he starts spilling secrets.
But then again, torture isn't a good way to get information the tortured will usually crack under pressure and tell the torture want they want to hear, and not necessarily the truth,
"Officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested."
I don't really agree with eric holder, but I think this is the right thing to do
You bring up an interesting way of thinking about the purpose of imprisonment, I think when you do really break it down, imprisonment in a wartime situation really only serves two purposes, leverage and information. But as a modern society, theres certain things we need to acknowledge and universally wrong (not as much as morally wrong, but 'hey, lets not do that to each other, no one likes it' kind of wrong.) Torture is one of those things, the threat of further imprisonment in horrible conditions should be the sole motivator for information.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the Attorney General is taking active steps to ensure a precedent is set that this will not be tolerated. The United States played a big part in the setting of a lot of wartime standards and regulations and its sad to think we readily engage in breaking them.