Connecticut For Lieberman, Lieberman For Torture

If the only argument against waterboarding is that some people think it's immoral, then waterboarding should be allowed because no one should impose their own morality on others, for the decision on waterboarding should be based purely on cost-benefit analysis.

p.s. water torture didn't cause the Spanish inquisition.

The Human Rights Torch will pass, with accompanying events, through 37 countries in six continents. It arrives in Israel on February 18. To receive the torch and the mandate it represents, a mass rally will be held on the grounds of the Tel Aviv Museum at 5 PM.

The motto of the Human Rights Torch Relay [HRTR] is: "The Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China."

UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES

In 2006, reports began to circulate that the Chinese authorities were harvesting organs -- hearts, lungs, livers, etc. -- from live Falun Gong prisoners and selling them on the lucrative organ transplant market. The allegation was so grotesque that many people dismissed it as an urban myth.

Organs were being taken out of the bodies of thousands of live, healthy prisoners to supply the booming Chinese organ market.

The government of Canada, however, appointed two respected attorneys, David Matas and David Kilgour, to investigate the allegations. On May 8, 2006, they submitted their report. The report confirmed the worst -- that organs were being taken out of the bodies of thousands of live, healthy prisoners of conscience to supply the booming Chinese organ market.

"The atrocity is so great that there are simply no words to express it," stated Rabbi David Druckman, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Motzkin. "It is especially incumbent upon us as Jews to lead the campaign that expresses total disgust at this phenomenon."

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv of Jerusalem is the world's leading halachic authority. Rabbi Elyashiv was asked by an Orthodox Israeli doctor who was hired to accompany a Jewish patient to China for an organ transplant if such transplants were permissible, given the likelihood that a human being was murdered to provide the organ. Rabbi Elyashiv ruled that it is absolutely forbidden to receive an organ transplant from such a source, even if one's own life is at stake.

Several months ago, over 220 Israeli rabbis, academics, and politicians signed a petition calling for an end to the Chinese atrocities. In a rare show of Jewish unity, the signatories included the entire Israeli spectrum from the right to the left, from religious to secular.

Between 2004 and 2007, about 20 Israelis received heart transplants in China, 10 received liver transplants, and some 200-300 received kidney transplants. In 2007 all Israeli health funds agreed to refuse funding for organ transplants in China and other ethically questionable locations. Tal Babich, an Israeli Falun Gong supporter, points out that while organs are being stolen from victims in Turkey, the Ukraine, and India, these crimes are being perpetrated by Mafia-like elements. Only in China is the government itself behind the forcible extraction of organs.

WHAT'S THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE?

Falun Gong began in China in 1992. Today the movement has over 70,000,000 adherents in China and many thousands abroad. Falun Gong believes in the Divine, and advocates the cultivation of three principle traits: truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Borys Wrzesnewsky, a Canadian parliamentarian, observed that while the atrocities being perpetrated against the Falun Gong by the Communist government of China are horrific, they are not "shocking," in the sense of surprising. Communism is, after all, an atheistic system, doctrinally opposed to belief in God and spirituality. [Witness the genocide that the Chinese Communists committed against Tibetan Buddhists.] Moreover, he points out, Communism believes that everything can be reduced to economic factors. A human being, therefore, has a purely economic value, either as a worker or, in the case of political undesirables, as the possessor of organs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Harvesting organs" from a human being in the same way that one harvests cucumbers from a field is thus perfectly consistent with Communist ideology.

The Torah introduced to the world a different value system. According to the Torah, human beings are valuable because of their spiritual essence, because they are created "in the image of God." While the ancient Greeks, the originators of the Olympic games, were practicing infanticide of babies who were undesirable because they were girls or handicapped, Jews were asserting the inviolable sanctity of human life.

Never Again

Jewish law requires us to spread the values of faith in the Creator and of maintaining the 'image of God' throughout the world.

"We as Jews must therefore stand at the front lines of this war," asserts Rabbi David Druckman, "and employ every possible tactic in order that the world expunge atrocities such as this. Jewish law requires us to spread the values of faith in the Creator and of maintaining the 'image of God' throughout the world. The same Torah that tells us to keep the Sabbath and to eat only kosher food also requires that we [ethically] influence all of mankind."

So what can we do? HTHR recommends three lines of action:

 

1.Raise awareness of the atrocities being perpetrated in China. Forward this article, speak to your friends, feel outraged.

2.Social action: Write letters to your local newspapers, to the Chinese Embassy, to the Olympic Committee. If you choose to attend the Olympics, wear a T-shirt condemning Chinese crimes against humanity. Attend the Human Rights Torch Relay when it comes to your area. Let China know that it will not be accepted as a respectable member of the community of nations until it releases the Falun Gong. Do something!

3.Donate money to publicize the campaign.

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are you against beheading one person if doing so would save the lives of 100 million people?

they say the rational person would make his decision based on utilitarian calculus and choose to behead the one person for the greater good. and the emotinal person would choose to adhere to the dogma that he was taught, that killing is always wrong.  are you going to let your emotion override your rationality?

Anon, are you for beheading one person if it would save the lives of two?  According to a strict utilitarian calculus, you should be, but I certainly hope no rational person would suggest that we should harvest healthy people's organs for the greater good.  The problem with strict utilitarianism is that it doesn't conform to common sense.  Certainly most people would be willing to commit one reprehensible act in order to prevent the occurrence of a great many more, but at what amount does the distinction between the rational moral belief and the dogmatic one occur?

Of course, for torture, it's not so black and white.  Utilitarian calculus also needs to take into consideration the wellbeing of the prisoner.  How many lives need to be saved to offset the intense physical and psychological trauma sustained by the prisoner?  What percentage of prisoners need to be actual enemies of the state, as opposed to false victims, to give a policy of torture more utility than standard interrogation procedures?

Utilitarianism is an over-simplified moral theory that is essentially useless in such a complicated case as torture (or any real-life scenario, to be honest).  There are other, more robust, systems that more closely correspond with what rational people hold to be morality.  I would argue that most of those place torture in the "impermissible" category.

How do you stand on getting information about a ticking bomb?  You got the easy ones right.

Besides, the whole issue is confusing.  If you want truthful intelligence, then torture doesn't work, and just about every expert and participant in the field expresses this sentiment.

If you're into S & M, if you wan't people to convert to your point of view or religion, then, historically, torture seemed to be the way to go.  

But back to the ticking bomb.  Lives are at stake.  What do you do? 

"There are other, more robust, systems that more closely correspond with what rational people hold to be morality. I would argue that most of those place torture in the "impermissible" category."

Name one that  system that forbids waterboarding under any circumstances. 

"If you want truthful intelligence, then torture doesn't work, and just about every expert and participant in the field expresses this sentiment."

It's not that simple.  Torture can work if the information you want to extract can be corroborated.

If you can corroborate information, that means you can get the information in other ways, which makes the whole interrogation pointless.

This hypothetical seems to stipulate that there are no other sources of information. That this particular prisoner is in possession of unique and vitally important data that must be believed. Any use of torture will taint the veracity of that information. In other words, if you're hurting someone they will say what they think you want to hear just to make it stop. Torture ends up wasting the time you don't have in the first place.

for example, if you want to know where a terrorist has hid a bomb. you can force him to tell you the location of the bomb by torturing him, you can then verify this information by go to the given location. You can try find the bomb yourself, but that would take much longer, since only the terrorist you have caught knew the percise location of the bomb. 

Because if he's in pain, if you are torturing him or her, you might find that the location he gave you isn't the right one, and boom.

So, how do you get someone to talk, talk quickly and tell the truth? The only technique I've heard of that accomplishes this, is waterboarding, which is done very sparingly. But it worked and only took 30 seconds, while yielding a great deal of information. It also doesn't do any lasting damage.

Otherwise, from what I've heard, most interrogations take place in a very relaxed, almost chatty atmosphere.