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Originally Posted by aceventura3
What makes it unacceptable to me is that I would respond with greater force.
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You didn't answer the question. Let me restate: If we want to use waterboarding we have no right to complain if another country waterboards our guys. If we conduct severe beatings on detainees we have no right to complain when one of our guys gets beaten severely by captives.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
In my view of the world you impose consequences and that determines the degree upon which something is acceptable. For example if we leave a US citizen in a Iranian prison accused of spying, we consider that acceptable. When we force her release one way or the other, then we have considered it unacceptable.
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This is a completely different scenario. We need to respect the laws of a nation when we are in it. Journalists shouldn't be going to Iran expecting to have the same freedoms that they have in the US. This doesn't mean we accept Iran's laws or methods of accusation, trial, and punishment, but overall it is their nation and we can't stop them from doing what we do. If we believe that an injustice has been done we can attempt to solve the problem diplomatically but there are no guarantees.
Conversely, even though I oppose capital punishment, if we convict a UK citizen for a capital offense that he carried out in the US, the US has the right to execute him in accordance with our laws (capital punishment is outlawed in the UK).
If you are talking specifically about Roxana Saberi, then yes, espionage is probably a bogus charge but she was originally arrested for attempting to purchase wine (illegal in Iran) and for acting as a reporter without credentials (her credentials were revoked in 2003 and then again in 2006). She continued collecting information for a book while occasionally publishing articles for NPR and the BBC. Maybe that is a stretch for "espionage" but it is easy to tell that she got herself into this mess by disobeying Iranian laws in the first place. Again, don't go to another country and expect to be given all your rights as an American.
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Originally Posted by Willravel
This is contradictory. Are you on Ace's side (or perhaps former side) in thinking that intelligence from torture is anything but completely unreliable? This doesn't just have to be an ethical argument, it can be both ethical and logical. Torture is a violation of our principles AND it doesn't work. We have both on our side, so we can't lose.
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It's not contradictory at all. First of all, we can't make a blanket statement that torture never works. I'm sure it can work at times. I'm also sure that people will just make up any story they can to get the it to stop. My position is that the accuracy of the information you obtain is irrelevant to the question of whether we should or should not torture. We shouldn't torture. In addition, we need to have a clear and absolute definition of what torture is. If we have to, we can make it an amendment to the Constitution.
The fact is that even if the information is suspect it is still intelligence. I'd still have it checked out. The agent that used the torture should still be prosecuted because he broke the law.