VIII. The price is vulnerability.

In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence.

found on CounterPunch.Org

We must withstand. If we open this Pandora's box there will be no end to the evil broth spilling out of it. Torture is not a means of 'information retrieval'. It is not at all reliable. The Cautio Criminalis written by Friedrich von Spee in the turn of the 17^th century already rejected torture as a means of interrogation.

Torture is a means of suppression. The War on Terror is a Never-Ending-War, as the definition of a terrorist is very obscure. It may be applied to some like the Red Army Faction who considered car-bombs as a means of political fight, or to a group in open Civil Disobedience. One has to be very careful nowadays to speak of freedom fighters: the Nazis of course would have considered the French 'Resistance' a terrorist group...

If we in the least ease the use of torture, we will end with three certain results:

1. the war on terror will not end. There will always be people who believe that not all oil belongs to America.

2. There will always be one more terrorist to be tortured legally: anyone of them might provide the information to prohibit a disaster. And if he doesn't know about the bomb itself he knows someone who knows someone who knows someone...

3. Why stop with terrorists?

And yes: there is a price for being HUman. The price is vulnerability.

Per