[zmgsabst]

The impact on public morale when your “necessary” actions are discovered is an outcome too.

I find people who say “the ends justify the means” tend to ignore outcomes of their actions which don’t support their desired bad behavior — and generally completely ignore higher-order effects, such as the corruption of the US IC undermining the US rule of law in a way no foreign adversary ever could.

I don’t think US IC members have the wisdom to know what ends come from their means — they just shut their eyes, utter the catechism, and commit illegal acts that undermine the US.

[ethbr0]

Imho, A Few Good Men is a great movie because, especially for 1992, it spoke directly to those gray areas.

About ten years later, after 9/11, the US established Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where in 2023 there are still people (32?) held outside of normal legal processes.

I would expect that the 32 remaining, out of almost 800 total, are a clear threat to the United States.

But is it right to keep them there? What are the moral implications of the rest of America looking away while ugly work is done with their authority and in their name?

Colonel Jessep isn't 100% wrong (Santiago's death may have saved lives, but his death shouldn't have happened), and Lt Kaffee isn't 100% right (Jessep broke the law, but people are not owed unvarnished truth without earning it).

Everyone's who's worked for a large corporation, even outside the IC, knows that many things are done in that grey area, with the expectation bosses would deny asking someone to do it. See the recent news about Union Pacific train wheel bearing inspections being pressured to pass.

To me, the balance of any system is accepting an optimal level of corruption/abuse, in order to permit efficient functioning. Grease lets things slip, yet also decreases friction.

It's ugly, sad, and terrible... but also necessary. A perfectly enforced code of laws would rapidly implode any country in the world, because it wouldn't leave room for interpretation and exceptions.

[zmgsabst]

Sure — but that’s already substantially back-pedaling from “the ends justify the means” as a general policy.

And by that same argument, arbitrarily lynching some of the corrupt actors — despite knowing that everyone is operating in such gray areas and such things are necessary — is the counterbalancing force to that necessary corruption. The tension and friction which makes it work. You define the gray area through those prosecutions at the edges.

Each foray into the gray zone becomes a risk — and so only the necessary ones are made, rather than normalizing a culture of corruption.

Without that, you have all slip and no stick, so the machine falls apart. Which is what we see in the US IC (and businesses): too much lubricating corruption; not enough punishment. Taken too far “out of tolerance”, the machine becomes broken or even dangerous to keep operating — and so must be replaced entirely.

If you want to tell me you have the wisdom to operate in such gray areas, then you should be aware of that necessary reality too.