Paul, here's the thing. I agree 100% with that statement; however, I do not believe, as you say, "Canadian soldiers serve up random passerbys." Making that leap shows a profound lack of understanding about how soldiers go about their duties.

Frankly, I am sick and tired of the way some are quick to assume soldiers are either too stupid or unequipped to judge between an innocent passerby and a combatant. We detain people for a lot less at airport security than we do in the field and that's a fact.

Do you really believe a platoon leader in a Canadian infantry regiment (we only have three) is more or less trained than the guy swabbing your laptop at Pearson? Think about it.

The majority of the detainees in question were taken during Operation Medusa, a major counter attack led by Canadian Forces to push back a Taliban offensive when we assumed responsibility for Kandahar.. We lost 12 soldiers plus many more wounded in that campaign, not to mention that unfortunate episode where an entire company of the RCR was rendered combat ineffective due to an errant strafing run by an American A-10.

War is not an exact science, but if Lt. Smith took a prisoner, it was for a damn good reason. I guarantee you it wasn't because he is stupid, lazy, or enjoys the reams of paperwork that goes with each contact.

By all means ask "legitimate questions," but please, no more of this "random passerbys" crap. Do not insult the quality of those chosen by the Canadian Forces to command elite infantry. If he has the quality to command, he at least deserves the benefit of a doubt and some respect for his judgment.

So again, how is this different from the torture of an enemy who knows where the next attack is going to be launched? That would be done with the same motive (protect the lives of soldiers/civilians/police), and would be just as much a response to a threat.

I don't care if the media go after a political party so long as there is merit to the story line, but surely you can see how the torture allegations are being pushed back. Frankly, while this story about how the LPC will vote on the HST is interesting, it hardly merits the same status as torture allegations.

With regards to Pinker's piece, I'm not endorsing his arguments in any way – I just think he's often thought-provoking when he examines familiar problems in the context of evolution, genetics, and neurology.

"they're just uninformed."

I was just using Andre's "Without empathy, you're a psychopath" as definition of psycho.

There is a reason why pro-choice people use euphemisms. Abortion = dead baby, not hard to understand and it's got nothing to do with being 'informed' or not.

I need details to answer your question. I believe in utilitarian ideas in some circumstances so I would need details to give you specific answer. I would not condone torturing one innocent person to save ten other innocents, but I might support torturing one innocent to save thousands.

Sorry, but the media have to be held responsible for this. Why has the "diabolical" mechanisms of Harper trying to force Ignatieff into a corner over the HST pushed the torture allegations off the front page?

Which is more important – Harper's political genius, or whether Canada has become a country that condones torture.

Do you understand that prior to 2006, prisoners were not transferred to Afganistan authorities, but to US authorities?

So I don't think you can say that most abortion supporters are psychopaths – they're just uninformed. The abortion doctors may well be psychopaths though.

It suggests that Canada should resume transferring prisoners to US custody, under a joint detainee policy.

This is also interesting:
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/us-urges-overha…

I agree that Andre makes a decent attempt to explain but from where I sit everyone who supports abortion is a psychopath, which means over 70% of Canadians according to Macleans.

I am believer in eye for an eye, so I don't get too wound up if Taliban bullyboys were tortured – you reap/sow and all that – but I do think anyone who wasn't part of the worst excesses of the Taliban should not have been tortured.

That makes wanton torture evil – and not just torture of humans either. Since humans are just animals, it also explains why wantonly torturing cats or dogs or fleas would be evil.

But there is a problem: if the infliction of pain is being done to save others, then can't one be acting out of empathy for those? Example: someone subjects a lab rat to a medical test that causes the rat to die in agony. However the test leads to a cure for cancer. The scientist in acting out of empathy for cancer victims and noting that the lab rat's torture serves a higher purpose. I'd say that's justified. So why would the same argument (sacrifice a man for a higher purpose: to save thousands of victims with whom one empathizes) not apply to torture?

Concerning (1), I've seen claims by intelligence professionals to the contrary. Doesn't make it so, of course, but the point is at least in dispute. Anyway Wells and I both agree that this is moot/irrelevant: the point here is that even if torture were necessary and useful in some (hypothetical) circumstance, we'd both still be opposed to it.

By "torture is monstrous" I take Wells to be restating the point that torture is always evil. I agree, but the question being asked is "why". Why is killing not necessarily monstrous, but torture is?

Why? I will it so. I can dress that up with fancy dogma if you prefer, but at the end of the day it's just vehement personal preference.

It seems to me that you're asking a series of rather leading questions and you would do better to come clean and declare why you, Gaunilon, think human beings are an end in themselves and what the basis of morality is. A non-sectarian formulation would benefit us all.

1. Torture is useless. It produces false confessions that lead to wild goose chases. It elicits true confessions that could have been produced with less monstrous techniques. Since you can never know whether you've got a false confession, the utility of true confessions is sharply compromised.

2. But that doesn't matter all that much, because…

3. Torture is monstrous. And if we are to become monsters then I see no reason to bother fighting monsters.

If you want to nuance this with "threaten to leave" go right ahead. We should not be in any way shape or form countenancing torture of "scumbags" or innocents caught up in the civil war that is Afghanistan.

Our mere presence there means we've been aiding and abetting any other NATO allies who are less than scrupulous, too, i.e. the U.S. forces which are said to be not "squeamish" at all about the use of torture.

So far our defence appears to be "don't ask, don't tell, I'm covering my ears and eyes, and whatever you do, Lordy Lordy don't write anything down!"

I am not impressed with our three generals performance. How many times did they (or MacKay or Harper) utter "no credible evidence" this past week? One can only imagine the've decided to recast the word "credible" to mean "no one from DFAIT or not under our command thumbs".

"Psychopathy (pronounced /saɪˈkɒpəθi/[1][2]) is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy"

As a torturer you feel empathy for the tortured. You know the physical and psychological damage you inflict is wrong because you wouldn't stand to have it done to yourself. Empathy is a normal human trait.

Without empathy, you're a psychopath.

Quite right, "highly evolved" is wrong, though perhaps "sentient" doesn't work either: I'm of the view that animals definitely think. I think Gaunilon was being sarcastic, however: "animals" is fine by me.

The key thing, for me, is that I empathise with other members of my species. I'm not sure this is all that universal, however: the ancients, for example, don't seem to have especially empathised with their slaves, or not beyond thinking "Poor wretch!" when they saw a fellow human being tortured for evidence in a law court (as was standard Roman legal procedure for slaves' evidence). In my case, I like to think of it as a form of pride: by degrading the humanity of the victim, a torturer mortally insults my own humanity. But again there are degrees: I take it as a personal insult if someone even looks insultingly at my GF or a family member, or verbally insults a friend, or dismisses my country; but I don't really care if Afghan jailers tutoient their prisoners. But, as I say, I consider the torture of one human being to be the torture of humanity itself, which includes me.

On a related note, check out this interesting NY Times piece by Montreal-born superstar Steven Pinker (You've likely heard of him – he's another one of our expatriate celebrity intellectuals at Harvard).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psyc…

Any valid argument about morality has to resolve down to showing how a certain action is inconsistent with reality. If the reality is that humans are just smart animals then it's appropriate to treat them as such. On the other hand, if the reality is that humans are an end in themselves, that leads to different conclusions.

Humans might have evolved all kinds of nutty ideas, sure. But that doesn't mean that those ideas would be correct. If the argument is about whether our moral convictions are correct then it needs a more solid basis than "we just evolved to the point where this behaviour repulses us".