Bosk, you obviously missed my point, since you said:

" If Jesus were here now whom would Jesus torture & how would he torture them?"

That is absolutely right, and my entire point. In comparison to the rest of the world through no fault of their own(it's just that Europeans were the first to produce civil society and democracy), the west is Jesus, they cannot just torture or kill or threaten people. For one it is illegal and secondly it would not be allowed by their own populations. The cultures of the Middle East and Asia do not have the same level of human rights or a populace that would actually care, as harsh as that sounds(but it is true), so their governments have no problem killing and scheming in whatever manner they wish. This is why Suddam was able to control his "jail" for so long. Instead of putting undies on his enemies heads, he would have tortured his family, their families, their neighbours, whatever it took to quell unrest.

I'm not saying that it is a good thing to have people hurt, but as long as they are not actually killed, and considering it is actually a state of war we are in, then what is the problem with scaring or indeed hurting the lowlifes most of these people are anyway, who kill kids and innocent women.

Besides, it all comes down to who you think are the bad guys here. The angry, deposed Iraqi Sunni "royalty" don't represent the Kurds or Shiites or indeed any Arab Christians who have been left alive over the years by their Muslim masters, these latter groups have a chance to build a new and possibly equal Iraq. The muslim diasporas in the western world, and the leftwing "bad-doers" don't know or care about this. The mostly sunni muslim community here in Australia obviously support the deposed sunni's, who by the way, regularly use tactics of killing innocent women and children just to get to a couple of US soldiers(nice people). Western values forced on them is what they need.

If you want to make an ommlette, you have to break some eggs.

Since I think we're all looking from similar perspectives, I'll disregard good and evil being points of view. There are greater goods and greater evils, there are lesser goods and lesser evils. On this, I think we can all agree. It is folly to always choose the good path which, in the scope of this duscussion, is not using torture. I'll use an analogy for simplicity. Going out for a night of binge-drinking and debauchery may seem like a good idea at the time, but it could easily end with a multitude of things which really were not worth it, as I'm sure many of you will understand. Now, turning down the offer to go out with friends to a night of binge srinking and debauchery may feel bad at the time, but will lead to the greater good of avoiding whatever horrible misfortune you would've endured otherwise. You aren't always going to endure horrible misfortune if you don't occasionally torture, but unless you do what is necessary to prevent that misfortune should it become probable, simple probablity will tell that you WILL endure that misfortune at some stage or another.

Of course, ultimately, the best way to avoid both the misfortune and the torture is to remove the need for them.

Brett

I'm aware of the state of South Africa, but your right, the authorities try to hide ethnic crime, although that's impossible in your country! I noticed that as soon as the blacks took over, Mandela, the man who has still NOT CONDEMNED MUGABE for torture (so in essence he stands for black rights, not human rights as is made out) when Mandela took power the first thing he did was basically make it impossible for a black man to be arrested for rape. With 38000 murders a year, staggering numbers when you consider Australia had about 710 murders last year, there are real problems there.

Regarding torture in general, it's a neccessary truth of our time. Most of this world, well, all of it outside of Western Europe, Canada, N.Z, Australia, and Japan is a hellhole. Torture is part of ways of life, part of the culture for most. Where are the moral relativists on this point?