Post 9/11 Torture

[fromderinside]

War is accomplished by killing people and destroying things. We romanticize it and justify it in many ways, because it is so expensive, we have to believe it is worth the cost, or human beings simply could not bring themselves to do it. The people who torture in our name believe they are fighting a war.

The object of any war is to make the other side believe the effort is too expensive, while convincing ourselves it is worth the price. We can argue that the death and injury to those who are not a direct threat to us somehow harms our effort, but we can't argue that it is too great a cost. In war, this is not allowed, because it is the definition of defeat.

As a species, we are not far removed from a time when defeat meant death or slavery for those who managed to live to the end. The idea that people deserve to live(life, liberty and pursuit of happiness) is a fairly modern concept.

What you say reflects a common view. What war entails are two sides polarized, each rationalizing they are aggrieved and the other is just plain wrong. Piss lines are prepared. Pinker calls the differing view of the two sides a morality gap. If you are the aggrieved you take the view that you were wronged when they attacked so you are justified in seeking revenge. If you are the perpetrator you take a previous incident where you fell you were wronged a the reason why you too aggressive action.

(Below I recite a bit Pinker's view which goes way beyond where I was when I began to read his "Better Angels".)

Obviously any decision tree based on such parameters are bogus, just as they generally are when two children fight over a toy. Apparently the trick is to put an agreed impartial arbitrator between them or for one side to apologize in a credible way. Nationhood has arrived at the point where a 'fair' arbiter is installed creating circumstances where both sides give credibility to it and its decisions. This circumstance gives individuals and groups within a society to resolve torts without resorting to swords because the governments word (sword) is acknowledged to be the one that overpowers. This civilizing force actually drives deaths between individuals down along with other civilizing things like rules of the road (etiquette for instance) generating more tendency for easily enraged individuals, even groups, to settle or avoid force.

Now there are international institutions that seem to be accomplishing much the same results. UN monitors between warring groups or nations provide an outlet for reason to prevail driving down tendencies for existing conflicts or future conflicts from arising between the same parties.

With the above as a backdrop I'm inclined to information being the prime factor permitting intermediaries to succeed because having it permits all views to be seen by all. Trusted authority and up close and personal seemed to hasten our disengagement from an ideological war in Vietnam. Cronkite turning against the Vietnam war, the child running from a fight in flames shook americans up so much that the government lost credibility in its efforts to sustain support for the goodness of our fight.