| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Belmont Club: Ends, Means, and Principles |
| 2006-06-13 |
| Emphasis in boldface added. Talk Left raises the possibility that torture may have been used somewhere in the process of hunting down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Block-quoted handwringing moral equivalence omitted . . . you can probably imagine what they said. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once observed that we were all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. In fairness its possible, even probable, that the Jordanians were less than gentle with Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly. There is certainly a chance that he was tortured in the very real sense of the word by the Jordanians, though no one knows this to be true. There's also a fairly high probability that, legally speaking, Alan Dershowitz is right that from the point of view of the 'international community' "targeted killings of this kind are unlawful and unjustified." Of course it is also possible that Mr. al-Karbouly, knowing the reputation of the Jordanians sang like a canary rather than find out if their reputed ferocity was real. And it is conceivable that it's actually not illegal to target specific individuals in war. But let's suppose for the sake of argument that the Jordanians did torture al-Karbouly and that targeted assassinations are in fact illegal. What then? |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 Much like Dennis Miller's stance on animal testing to cure AIDS, I'd agree that if hooking up terrorists to car batteries is the only way to stop al Qaeda, then I can only say; RED IS POSITIVE AND BLACK IS NEGATIVE |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-06-13 22:06 |
| #4 If torture was used to find Zarqawi I think perhaps its proof that torture can work. I'm not sure they want to open that can of worms if they are againt torture. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-06-13 12:00 |
| #3 Many of the posters at Belmont Club pointed out that Talk Left actually has no proof that torture was used, and thus had to resort to weasel words to scratch up some credibility and moral position to criticize. This, of course, leads to the question of whether they, themselves, are being moral in proceeding to criticize in the absence of evidence. I must credit that discussion at Belmont Club for this recent brainstorm: why exactly are those who do not believe in God moralize as if there is one? Leftist philosophers are notorious for asserting that there is no truth, so why act as if there are moral truths (a double non-existent in their eyes) that must be acted upon? The answer, of course, is that Christians, and the children of Christians (which covers the majority of those in the west today), actually CARE about beinv moral and actually ACT upon that morality. Leftists sniff at morality and make it a point NOT to act upon it as a demonstration of their "liberation from primitive religion". They talk it because THAT'S THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN GET PEOPLE TO DO WHAT THEY WANT. Christian morality, for these people, is NOT a way to discover how to serve God, but a convenient belief held by good people that allows them, the enlightened, to manipulate them into doing stupid things. This gets at the core of the difference between Christian preaching that condemns sin and moral failings, and Talk Left's moralizing: The former is intended to bring the sinner to a state of repentance and reconciliation to God, leading to obedience and service to God, while the latter is an attempt by men with little integrity and no conviction to manipulate those with more integrity and conviction into doing what they want. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-06-13 10:56 |
| #2 We can, like the early Christians choose to face the lions rather than renounce our beliefs. The problem is somewhat differnet: eraly Christians faced their own death, here what we ahave is causing the deayth of other people, of hundreds or thousands of other people to keep our precious principles. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-06-13 10:13 |
| #1 Talk Left raises the possibility that torture may have been used somewhere in the process of hunting down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That's alright. We raise the possibility that western MSM may be actually allies of enemies of the United States [and Western Civilization for that matter]. Examining their behavior, willingness to the uncritical water carrier of any enemy proclamations, magnifying every small enemy staged event as though it was something significant, and never producing weeks/months of denunciation of standard violations of the tenets of the Geneva Convention concerning the intentional targeting of civilians, one must conclude by such evidence that MSM is indeed actively working on behalf of the enemy. |
| Posted by: Spomose Angick9582 2006-06-13 09:33 |