Torture vs Interrogation

Here's my theory:

When you hurt people for fun, or enterntainment, or malice, or personal profit, or revenge, or anger, it's torture.

When you hurt people because you need information they have, to save lives..particularly if you need that information in a hurry...it's interrogation.

Same tactics, different motives. Different morality scale.

It is a critical difference that addresses the common argument that if we use harsh mean to get information we will be "just like them."

However, that is a false analogy. The psychological state of a person willing to hurt anyone because they are angry, or hate everyone because they do not follow the same religion, or targeting children and other innocents is wildly different from the psychological state of a trained interrogator who is willing to use harsh means on a terrorist so that lives can be saved.

Until we share their sick psychological state, we cannot be "just like them".

Sometimes, when circumstances demand it, good men are forced to do bad things. But that does not make them bad men. And when circumstances change, good men will stop doing bad things, because it is no longer necessary for survival or defense. Bad men don't.

That is the difference between us and them.

A soldier carries candy in his pocket to offer to Iraqi kids to get them into his Hummer so he can drive them away from a fire zone.

A pedophile carries candy in his pocket to offer to California kids to get them into his van so he can kidnap and rape them.

The fact they they both carry candy in their pockets and offer it to children to get them into their vehicles does not mean they are "just like" one another.

The Gunslinger