historiblogography

contingent principles

Rich Lowry, March 2007:

Showing the captives and coercing a confession out of one of them (a woman the Iranians have thoughtfully outfitted in a head-covering to protect her virtue) are violations of the laws of war, not to mention holding them in the first place.

Rich Lowry, Sept. 2006:

Opponents of coercive interrogations want to conjure a just-so world, where terrorists always tell us what they know through the sweet art of persuasion and where we never have to do anything that morally discomfits us. Would that the world were so clean and simple. Let’s hope the judgment that scholar Paul Rahe rendered on those unwilling to make morally complicated choices prior to World War II never has to be made against opponents of coercive interrogation: “They were more nice than wise. In refusing to commit the smaller sin, they incurred a far greater wrong.”

Coercive interrogation is goodbad, depending. It's a special moral code known well to the free-floating authoritarian personality.

posted by Chris Bray @ 12:22 PM