Jerome Slater Quotes
The issue is not whether there are serious moral and practical costs to employing torture—of course there are for torture is evil. That is precisely why the choice of whether employ it to avert a greater evil is a tragic one.
Jerome Slater, Political Scientist & Blogger, Reply to Susan Waltz, Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2006-2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
During that period some terrorists were handed over to Saudi Arabian and Egyptian authorities for interrogation. These countries had no qualms about torture. Goss never answered the question about that practice.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism. As late as 2006 the American President was reluctant to outlaw torture for terroristsand the Vice President actually argued for its retention as an interrogation technique. Over 300 years earlier the autocrat of Russia argued against it.
Under torture many people will tell their interrogators what they want to hear --- accurate or not.
See {642427} for a case where the United States was accused of not living up to this treaty.
Muslim League leaders wanted to stir up India's Muslims in order to prevent Indian Independence from Britain unless India were partitioned and the Muslims could have their own nation. At that point the British and the Congress Party of India—the majority political party were both starting to plan for independence. Most of the Muslim nationalists did not want to have any Muslims living in a Majority Hindu nation. To stop it, they first used fear claiming that when the British left, the Hindus would massacre all the Muslims. They galvanized the Muslims to first attack the Hindus to dissuade then from their attacks which at that point were imaginary except in the conspiracy theory of the Muslim League. The moral logic of this statement was similar, albeit not to the same bloody degree, as the famous quotation of Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater on extremism." H. S. Suhrawardy
He was finally brought to justice after being protected by the right wing for many years. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. See related quote.
The bipartisan Presidential Commission had unanimously made 41 recommendations to prevent future terrorist attacks. While the Bush Administration and Congress implemented a few many of the more critical ones were left unaddressed. The commission on its final day issued a report card giving failing grades to both the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress.
