Applause: Shep Smith Drops F-Bomb On FOX
David Knowles
Contributor
Posted:
04/23/09
FOX News anchor Shep Smith let loose with what many in America are thinking about the current debate roiling over whether torture is ever justified. His passion on the matter is palpable, and led him to use language that some viewers may find offensive:
The "f-bomb" aside, the real story here is Smith's underlying point: This is America, we don't torture. We should not be using interrogation techniques designed by Communist China and Nazi Germany. They are morally wrong. Period. For those who counter with the argument that the torture was justified because it brought us valuable information that potentially saved lives (a dubious and unverifiable claim), one might ask, if raping the sons and daughters of admitted terrorists were shown to be an effective tool for procuring information, should we also do that? Or, should we peel away the skin from the bones of conscious suspects until they talked? If you think these acts too barbarous to contemplate, you need only look as far back as the genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda to find their earthly precedent.
While advocates of torture--I'm looking at you, National Review--believe our government needs to be able to reserve the right to administer the harshest methods available if it will save American lives, despite whether those methods are shown to be, on balance, far less productive than even the most enthusiastic supporters would hope (just ask former FBI Director Robert Muller), the notion that we might be guilty of moral transgression seems beside the point.
It's a dog eat dog world, after all. The terrorists (including the people we've held at Guantanamo Bay who have been shown not to be terrorists at all) must be made to talk. If some of them die as a result of their interrogations, so be it. To question the manner in which we achieve results is, to the Cheney crowd, un-patriotic. Never mind the voices that spoke up and told the Administration that they considered the techniques proposed to be illegal, or where the torture methods themselves had been concocted, you get them before they get you.
But if we really have abandoned our moral reservations about torturing those we believe may do us harm in the future, they why have we persisted in this silly game of not calling torture by its proper name?
David at Paradigms Lost
David on Twitter
The "f-bomb" aside, the real story here is Smith's underlying point: This is America, we don't torture. We should not be using interrogation techniques designed by Communist China and Nazi Germany. They are morally wrong. Period. For those who counter with the argument that the torture was justified because it brought us valuable information that potentially saved lives (a dubious and unverifiable claim), one might ask, if raping the sons and daughters of admitted terrorists were shown to be an effective tool for procuring information, should we also do that? Or, should we peel away the skin from the bones of conscious suspects until they talked? If you think these acts too barbarous to contemplate, you need only look as far back as the genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda to find their earthly precedent.
While advocates of torture--I'm looking at you, National Review--believe our government needs to be able to reserve the right to administer the harshest methods available if it will save American lives, despite whether those methods are shown to be, on balance, far less productive than even the most enthusiastic supporters would hope (just ask former FBI Director Robert Muller), the notion that we might be guilty of moral transgression seems beside the point.
It's a dog eat dog world, after all. The terrorists (including the people we've held at Guantanamo Bay who have been shown not to be terrorists at all) must be made to talk. If some of them die as a result of their interrogations, so be it. To question the manner in which we achieve results is, to the Cheney crowd, un-patriotic. Never mind the voices that spoke up and told the Administration that they considered the techniques proposed to be illegal, or where the torture methods themselves had been concocted, you get them before they get you.
But if we really have abandoned our moral reservations about torturing those we believe may do us harm in the future, they why have we persisted in this silly game of not calling torture by its proper name?
David at Paradigms Lost
David on Twitter