[moe.ron]

Excuses for Torture

1) Saddam was Evil 1 (i.e. the ‘them too’ excuse): Saddam, Hitler, Pol Pot and Attila the Hun tortured prisoners in much more horrible ways than us, so anything we do is minor and forgettable by comparison.

2) Saddam was Evil 2 (i.e. the ‘lesser evil’ excuse): If we weren’t in Iraq torturing people, Saddam would still be in charge torturing even more people in worse ways. So by comparison we are the good guys.

3) Standard practice (i.e. the ‘everybody does it’ excuse): Throughout history armies have tortured their prisoners. We are just following time-honored military practices.

4) The Stanford experiment (i.e. the ‘you too’ excuse): The Stanford experiment shows that if you were a prison guard, you would sodomize and torture prisoners too. So they just did what comes normally and naturally.

5) Blame the victims 1 (i.e. the ‘it’s their fault’ excuse): The prisoners were arrested because they guilty of something, so whatever torture happened to them, they had it coming.

6) Blame the victims 2 (i.e. the ‘eye for an eye’ excuse): By virtue of their being prisoners, we know them to be a bunch of thugs, rapists and torturers. They are just getting what they gave.

7) Blame the victims 3 (i.e. the 'preemption' excuse): They’d do it to us if they had a chance, so it’s OK if we do it to them first.

8) Lack of training (i.e. the ‘we’re just naïve kids’ excuse): Nobody told the guards not to sodomize and torture the prisoners, so how could they be expected to do otherwise?

9) Good training (i.e. the 'just following orders' excuse): Higher ups, civilian contractors, intelligence people, ordered these soldiers to torture and sodomize the prisoners to prepare them for interrogation. Like good soldiers, they were just doing what they were told to do.

10) Minimization 1 (i.e. the ‘it wasn’t so bad’ excuse): Similar things happen in frat house hazings and boot camp pillow parties. It was only a little torture, there are much worse things to be raped with than a chem light and a baton, only a few died, and besides, it was all in good fun.

11) Minimization 2 (i.e. the ‘ha-ha’ excuse): It was only a little torture, and besides, Muslims like anal sex.

12) 911, anti-Semitism, chemical attacks on the US (i.e. the ‘don’t look here, look over there’ excuse): 3000 people died on 911 and anything we can do to prevent another 911 is justified.

13) War: (the 'this is war' excuse): Bad things happen in war. This is war, so such things are to be expected.

14) Necessity: Some of the prisoners might have information that could save American lives, so we have to torture all of them into giving that information to us.