Originally Posted by
motorfirebox
I was outlining a general priority system--acknowledging, basically, that an agent of any government has a larger obligation to the citizens of that government than to non-citizens. It's not that I think that 'enhanced' interrogation methods are okay so long as it's only brown people. Rather, I think torture is a bigger problem if it's American agencies torturing American citizens than when it's American agencies torturing foreign nationals. And it's a priority system, not a set of absolute tiers--if you have to choose between waterboarding one countryman versus waterboarding ten, or a hundred, or a thousand foreign nationals, there's a point at which the ethical choice is to introduce your fellow citizen to exciting adventures in simulated drowning.
But like I said, the ethical question may be moot, because the more effective tact may also be the more ethical one.
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