The meetings did not establish a national policy of torture...quite the opposite, they determined legalisticly where the line between "enhanced interogation" and torture might be and advised those in the business of doing such things how close they could get to that line with the blessing of the administration.

Is it evil? Yes, but evil is an abosolute...torture is not...and if what was approved is torture, you must first determine the definition of is, which is still causing lawyers trouble.

If evil is not an absolue then any action is justified. Only if we can say there is a line which you must not cross, can we say that there are moral limits on our actions.

To intentionally cause terror, which is what these methods are, is evil in it's dehumanization of both victim and perpetrator. That being said, torture, not being an absolute is debatable in a legalistic context.

If Torture is not debatable, then a teenagers protestations of torture due to the limitations placed on them by their parents would be classified along with water boarding, sleep deprivation and other physically minimal methods of coercion.

I did use the term Devil metaphoricly, in that I wished to correct Mr. Tomorrows poor presentation of the facts, though I do not endorse the actions of which I consider evil.

Without moral absolutes, the world falls into various levels of excusable behavior from theft to genocide, at some point people of good concience must stand up and say enough.

Mr. King is not evil, but if I caused you to feel terror against your will by forcing you to listen to Shawshank Redemption, I would be evil (unless you were into that sort of thing).

Mr. King is no more evil that the water or the board used in water boarding, he has created amusement that might instill faux terror in the willing, it is the use of this item against against anothers will that crosses the line into evil.

You seem to not understand the differnce between relative notions and absolute realities.

As an example 0 degrees celcius is an absolute statement of temprature, where as cold is a relative statement. This is why the term frozen hot chocolate is not a contradiction in terms. The state of matter of the chocolate is not in question, and it is relativly hotter than other items.

One is an absolute and one is relative.

The statment that use of actions that are evil are justified in combating evil is an argument that favors a relativistic understanding of evil.

If evil is an absolute, then the actions are evil regardless of their purpose or who is enacting them.

From this line of relativistic thinking the carpet bombing of civilians,the torturing of detainees,and the summary execution of disadents are all allowable for the greater good.

However, if Evil is an absolute, it doesn't matter who kills who,who terrorizes who, it is all evil,and all unjustifiable.

So to sum up,if we employ evil against evil, that is relativistic thinking, and we ourselves become evil if evil is infact an absolute. If evil is not an absolute, like you wish to argue, then all evil actions are allowable if we can justify our actions to ourselves. Which I am sure, Hitler and Truman, Dick Cheney and Osama Bin Laden were all able to do.

Something's legality has nothing to do with it's existance as evil or not.

Which was my original point. The actions of those who employed these enhanced interogation techniques are evil, but likely, due to the extream legal wranggeling that superceeded the actions, were not illegal.

Thusly, a parking offense is not necessarily evil (though if you parked on someone a level of evil might be involved), it is just rude, and rudenss can be punished or not punished by society at it's leisure. Likewise, just because something is evil (as previously posted) doesn't require, and infact prohibits (if one wishes not to be evil) the use of further evil in retaliation.

I suggest you take a moment and read up on some philosophers other than than Vonegut (whom we all love) and you may find that any violation of the human spirit can qualify as evil, without calling for a reciprical evil to be enacted to "balance" the scales.

I can't imagine any other way to describe this.

Absolutism, the idea that something is absolute, defined and set without legalistic or contradictory wiggeling with regard to said definition.

Relativism, the idea that something is relative defined only by other things around it, and with no true independant definition of its own.

ERGO, if I say evil is an absolute, that means that one cannot justify it by saying it is evil in the defense of good. Evil in the defense of good is relativism, as it suggests Evils ceases to be evil when good people do it. That flys in the face of Absolutist philosophy with regard to evil.

Thusly, the gaggle of bush administration persons and Senator McCain, (and likely many people on this earth)are relativists in their view of evil, for an action they would define as evil when perpetrated against them, is justified when they perpetrate it in response.

I will stand with the absolutists on this, and state that wrong is wrong, regardless of one's justification. If you don't want it done on to you, don't do it on to others.

'nuff said.