in fear we trust

All's fair in love and war
Francis Edward Smedley

Because of the war in Iraq and the so called War on Terror both people to the left (new times indeed) and to the right (war is not peace - hang him) are discussing what's okay in a war and what's not. Often this debate targets what happend in Abu Ghraib and the death sentence against Saddam Hussein. Personally I find it very hard to support torture and the death penalty. Aren't those methods that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Axis of Evil supports? Shouldn't all of us who are living in modern democracies be against such barbaric practices? Why would people even want to torture anyone? I can only see a few reasons for the use of torture:
1 - you enjoy torturing people
2 - it makes you feel powerful and that you're in control
3 - to spread fear and to force people to subjection
4 - to gain knowledge about secret operations
5- to punish people you fear or hate
The US and their supporters usually refer to alternative 4, to gain knowledge, as the most important reason for them to use torture. But I believe that both alternative 3 and 5 are just as true. Maybe also alternative 2 - especially for low ranking military personel who are stuck in a hostile and chaotic environment. The strange thing is that when the US say that they have to use Torture Lite to gather important information they hide the fact that "torture is as likely to yield false information as it is to yield the truth". You would have to torture an awful lot of prisoners to gain enough material to find any patterns beyond lies made by those prisoners to protect themselves or lies given because they believe that's what his/her torturer wants to hear. Is that what all those secret prisons are for? Then what's the difference between us and Stalin or Saddam himself? We say that we defend democracy, liberty and human values - but is this really the way to do that? Torture? Executions? Oppression? Violence? Earlier this year a study made by the University College London suggested that "irrational decisions (are) driven by emotions.
"It has long been assumed in classical theories of economics that people act entirely rationally when taking decisions. However, it has increasingly become recognized that humans often act irrationally, as a consequence of biasing influences. For example, people are strongly and consistently affected by the way in which a question is presented. An operation that has 40 per cent probability of success seems more appealing than one that has a 60 per cent chance of failure."
I can't get away from the feeling that this not only clouds our judgement in economic issues but also in political. That would make both the Vietnam war and the War on Terror much easier to understand.

Now maybe some of you wonder why that manga dude is in the picture above? Bush and that famous Abu Ghraib picture must be pretty obvious. But who is that manga character? His name is Light Yagami, the main character in the manga/anime Death Note. He is an A student that one day find a book called "Death Note" outside his school. If he writes the name of a person in this book that person will die soon after. Light starts to kill off loads of "bad guys" to rid the world of evil. But at the same time he changes. He wants to become a god. To rule the whole world. He pretends to do good but is actually only motivated by his own hunger for personal power. Soon people who are not criminals starts to get killed by him just because he wants to protect his personal interests. It's a great anime. I really recommend it. And what does it have to do with George W Bush and the War on Terror? I don't know really...