Tortur: Hvorfor Obamas afvisning af at rejse sag ikke er i orden

Brugeren PaulR slår hovedet på sømmet i en kommentar på Boing Boing:

When you learn something, you learn in two ways. For example, you learn that the derivative of f(x)=3x is f(x) = 3. You also learn that you hate calculus.
(I don’t, but this way it’s funnier.)

So when, for example, your government says:
“Under no circumstance will we use the Death Penalty. EVEN IF the victim as a little girl who was raped. EVEN IF the victim was a policeman. EVEN IF the victim was the Prime Minister. EVEN IF the victim was home-invaded.”
or
“You will not be charged directly for medical care, and that care will be based on need, not on ability to pay.”

When the elite Canadian Airborne Regiment was found to have tortured a Somali teenager in 1993, the regiment was disbanded. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia_Affair – warning graphic photo.

In these cases, the government also sends out a very strong message that human life has value. This message has a subtle but powerful effect on the population.

In Texas, the penal system denies any shred of humanity to prisoners on death row. Even the possibility of making/writing a final statement in the days just before their execution. Y’see, the prisoner’s life has no meaning. He’s just pond scum.
Likewise with torture:
When the American government doesn’t punish torture,
EVEN THOUGH it’s banned by international law,
EVEN THOUGH the Nuremburg trials established that “I was just following orders” isn’t a valid excuse,
EVEN THOUGH it’s illegal according to American law,
EVEN THOUGH it’s been proven, over and over that IT DOESN’T WORK!,
then you give the green light to anyone else who wants to torture.

Now, how can Americans be surprised when torture is performed in other places? How can the American government, the only one that might have influence on the leaders in the UAE, even express their concerns about this story without looking like hypocrites?

Det er nødvendigt, én gang for alle, at slå fast at tortur er strafbart og ulovligt uanset om man har fået lov til det af sine overordnede, eller ligefrem ordre til det. Der skal ikke være straffrihed for den slags, med mindre man vil have Guantanamoer og Abu Ghraib’er over det hele.

• Læs også: Obama giver frit lejde til torturbødler