Hey, Jack Bauer and 24 is freaking awesome! Don't bash it or I'll punch you in the face until you tell me what I want to know! WHERE IS THE BOMB?!

Joking aside, this is true. It has been proved before that torture just doesn't work as well as some people claim it does, or as well as CTU would have us believe. Sure, if you dig you can probably find cases here and there were torture did result in accurate information that saved lives, but these are largely exceptions.

But you can't argue with the facts: Jack Bauer is more badass than you. When was the last time YOU escaped a torture chamber by faking a heart attack to lure a terrorist close enough to bite his jugular out? Didn't think so.

I agree,and i am glad others do to. And we must remain civil or we become monsters ourselves.

@raven28256
I confess...I have never faked a heart attack to lure a terrorist in close enough for me to bite his jugular out. I DID, however, stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

@mattykovax
The old Nietzsche quote comes to mind.

Actually that is what I was thinking,but I could not recall the wording well enough to actually put the quote. But you obviously got what I meant.

Torture is wrong for a lot of reasons, but most importantly, it turns us into the monsters we claim we are fighting. If we want to be the good guys, we have to act the part no matter how tempting it is to take the easy way out. Good guys don't cheat, don't lie, and don't torture.

That said, I still want someone to force Sean Hannity to keep that promise to be waterboarded for charity, because I despite that slimy little weasel. It's okay to waterboard him, because he volunteered.

Oh, and the Nietzche quote is "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one", and The Body's real name is Elle Macphearson. I was going to link to a picture of her, but Google Image search insisted on giving me... non-Gamespot-safe pictures.

Your 100% right on it not being a partisan issue. It's about what kind of country we want to be for ourselves, our children, and the rest of the world. All we can do is hope it doesn't happen again, and that some message is sent out that it will not be condoned.

Completely with you. Another story I've heard to attempt to justify torture is about the buried girl. A group of soldiers captures an enemy combatant. They have reason to believe the captured combatant recently buried a girl alive and they have limited time to save her. This is essentially another form of the ticking time-bomb. Here's the problem with using that to justify torture. Let's say I lived in Iraq and I didn't like my neighbor. If I was in good with the US military and I had no conscience, I might tell the US soldiers my neighbor buried this girl whether it be true or not just because I want them to torture my neighbor. The problem with every "justifiable situation" for torture is that in can be completely turned around by very simple means. Again, I'm completely with you. I'm just adding to your argument.

Precisely, Jim. Believe it or not, but there has been a lot of discussion in Catholic circles (namely, online), with a few that argue torture can possibly be justified in extreme cases. Even though the current pope, the preceding pope, the catechism, and common sense tells us that torture is unjustifiable in all instances, there are a few that persist it can. Apparently, "the end doesn't justify the means" doesn't make sense to some people.

It may sound heartless to treat a suspected terrorist like any other human, when there's reason to believe he can provide info to save a million lives, but torturing him means we dehumanize the suspect--terrorist or not. Doing this means, like you've said, becoming the monster we are fighting. Even if a million die in order that we protect the basic dignity of a suspected terrorist (a good), at least we didn't resort to evil means to save them. Good always outweighs any evil. In Christianity, this is when we must rely on God's Providence to deal with the consequences of the terrorists' actions. God's justice will be done eventually, even if it's not fully in this life.

The victims' suffering will not be in vain. It was through suffering that Jesus redeemed our sins, and it is through suffering that we can atone for our sins. Let's not allow the evil actions of others tempt us into rationalizing committing evil ourselves to stop them. Too many unpredictable consequences can result from evil for us to speculate the good that may come from it.

Torture is for self-satisfactory only imo. It doesn't really help find out the culprit.

Agreed. Torture is the work of evil people and they should be prosecuted.

I do want to add, though, that the debate over the justifiability of torture should not center on whether it's a reliable method for extracting information. Saying torture is wrong because it doesn't work may imply, whether intentionally or not, that even if we did find a fail-proof method of extracting accurate information from people, it'd be permissible to do. Instead, it's should not be about whether it works or not, but that it's a vicious attack akin to murder on the intrinsic dignity of a human being; therefore, there's no conceivable instance where torture can be justified.

You're 100% right. Torture is useless and cruel. The arguments about torture though mostly stem from disagreements as to what constitutes torture and then what to do with Americans, specifically American soldiers, found guilty of committing said torture.

@mattykovax
Yep. It is a pretty famous quote.

@ChiliDragon
Shame upon the houses of all the manly men replying to this blog, that a woman was the only one who knew who "The Body" referred to. I'm not sure that I'd ever want anyone waterboarded, but Hannity DID volunteer for charity. I also think his understanding of just what he was advocating would be increased if he underwent it.

However, lost in there is a critical point. How much more horrifying must the experience of being tortured be if you're in hostile hands and not certain when or IF the experience will ever end? If Hannity underwent this for charity, he'd be able to stop it at any time he wanted. A critical point.

@btaylor2404
I am concerned. Initially, I figured the reason Obama wanted to avoid prosecutions and move on was to avoid sabotaging the rest of his agenda. I disagreed with that approach, but at least understood the reasoning. We have huge problems to solve after all.

With the recent disclosures around Pelosi, a key Obama ally all the way back when he was running against Clinton in the primary, possibly being implicated. I wonder if there are different reasons why Obama wants to look away. That, to me, would be even more wrong.



@grigjd3
A good point. Ultimately, the ticking time bomb scenarios are incredibly unlikely, but also, I'm not sure that torture produces results any faster than other, traditional methods. Recall the two suspects we waterboarded 83 and 183 times in a month. If torture was so effective, why did we need to do it that many times? "Well, we waterboarded this guy 182 times without any results, but that magical 183rd time did the trick!"

@Author_Jerry
Good news about the Catholic discussion Jerry. The number of supposedly "Christian" groups arguing in favor of this practice has been alarming. I highly encourage true Christians who know how wrong this practice is to speak out.

Per your other point with regards to the focus being in the wrong area. I absolutely agree that torture is wrong no matter what. The reason I wrote this blog as I did is this: Proving that it is not only morally objectionable, but also completely ineffective, removes any potential justification people might try and make to rationalize the practice.

@Kleeyook
Agreed. The point of torture is always torture for its own sake. It becomes a self-fulfilling thing.

Professor Thomas Hilde in testimony before the Helsinki Commission December 2007 wrote:

"Torture "works" in that torture victims speak. The information gained is notoriously unreliable, however, as noted since the time of Aristotle. Accounts of torture from the Inquisitions exhibit how the most delirious tales were elicited from the victims. This information served to confirm the prior beliefs of the torturers. Bad weather, for instance, was thought at the time to be caused by airborne demons in consort with human "witches." In the delirium of torture, torture victims - those accused of being witches - confirmed these beliefs while providing the names of other "witches" who would reconfirm both the preposterous prior beliefs and the inquisitors' authority. The information was, of course, not true . Yet, it was meaningful information in that it fit extant prior beliefs in a historical context framed as a medieval version of the state of necessity,"

@N8A
Yes indeed.



@zgreenwell
Indeed. A good point that is where the argument presently is. However, if we're talking about techniques that have been considered to be torture for centuries (and we are, particularly with Waterboarding) and that we have always prosecuted as torture, the thin legal cover that folks like Bybee, Yoo, Addington, etc. provided should not be sufficient.

I often find myself as a "misguided liberal" on this issue, because it seems that often I find more solace with the liberals than the conservatives, despite maintaining that the true conservative prerogative must remain vigilante against torture.

I disagree with government sanctioned torture. Not because I care about the well-being of terrorists, because I most certainly don't, but because I don't trust the government. I don't trust them with my money, or much else, so the last thing I want to do is give them the power to torture. You are, however, mixing up some facts. Torture, or coercive interrogation, or whatever you want to call it can produce false confessions. But confessions are completely different from intel. Intel can be verified, and therefore proven or disproven, and if it's bad info you can go back to the drawing board (or water board). If someone does know something, torture them enough, and they WILL talk. Is it right? I don't think so, for the same reasons that were already stated. But you shouldn't try to mislead people by saying it doesn't work because it elicits false confessions, when it's not being used for confessions.

God bless America. Because a celebrity says that it's torture, it most certainly is.

Let's lay out the facts from the memos. There were three "suspected terrorists" waterboarded. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the "suspected" mastermind behind the 9/11 planning who we all already know a ton about. A second terrorist named Abu Zubaydah, one of Usama's "key lieutenants". The third was Abd Al-Rashim Al-Nashiri who planned the bombing of the USS Cole. Source Material [p 90, 91]:

http://documents.nytimes.com/justice-department-memos-on-interrogation-techniques#p=90

The media is running around as if we've waterboarded all of the middle east. It was three people. Three people with extensive knowledge of the al Queda network including financing and movement patterns. All three were believed by the memo's author to have actively participated in the murder of US citizens.

Instead of just buying the hype, I would encourage you to check out the memo that the Washington Post article references and decide for yourself if that's what it actually says (it's the first memo of the NY Times link). The memos state repeatedly that the three were not caving to standard interrogation methods, and it's not like these were lowbies who did not know specifics. They also give insight into the CIA's interrogation policy in general and why they felt waterboarding was not torture.

I find it a bit ridiculous that we're debating this issue instead of the $22000 worth of debt per US Citizen that we now have (not including our personal debt), or that Obama so far has only trimmed one half of one percent of the 3.4 trillion dollar budget (17 billion of defense spending basically), or that we have essentially nationalized some of the larger portions of our economy. With everybody distracted by "torture-gate", the policies of our current government aren't even being looked at. It's a fantastic political play by the Obama Administration.

@Genetic_Code
At present, if you aren't pro-torture, then you aren't considered a "true" conservative in the Republican party.

@garey017
I said that obtaining false confessions is the only thing that torture IS good for. I have no doubt that the stated intention is to obtain information. I'm just making the argument that it isn't any good for that purpose.

@teirdome
Maybe you missed the part about Jesse Ventura being a former Navy SEAL? Someone who has actually undergone the techniques in question? I'd say that gives him a certain amount of credibility on the issue.

I honestly doubt we've only waterboarded three people. In the last eight years we've had over 200 suspected terrorists DIE in our custody. That points to a much more systematic employment of torture than just a couple of people. As for the memos...they were drafted specifically to justify torture. What else are they going to say other than the standard methods aren't working? The FBI interrogators who were assigned to these suspects prior to being kicked out by the CIA insisted that they were getting good information, and that the standard methods were working. It was the "enhanced" methods that made the detainees stop talking.

But that really isn't the point. Tell me, in your opinion, how many people do you have to torture BEFORE it becomes wrong? Is the number 10? 100? 1000? At what point does it become wrong if ever?

As for the spending, I hardly heard a peep out of conservatives when it came to Bush's spending. Obama inherited the floundering economy. The first two bailouts were done by George W. Bush because they were necessary. Conservatives would have much more credibility on economic issues if A) They had complained AT ALL about Bush's former spending or B) They hadn't just run our economy directly into the ground.

@teirdome

Testimony coming to the hill today...

FBI Interrogator Ali Soufan wrote:

Soufan will directly contradict key claims by torture apologists that the techniques elicited high-value information. He will say flat out that the claim that Abu Zubaydah didn’t start giving up info until August 2002, when he was waterboarded, is false. “The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him,” Soufan will say. Soufan will also contradict claims that waterboarding got Abu Zubaydah to cough up info leading to the capture of so-called “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla. He will point out that waterboarding wasn’t approved until August of 2002, while Padilla was captured in May of 2002. And Soufan will deny yet another key claim of torture apologists: That torture revealed Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s involvement in 9/11. “That was discovered in April 2002, while waterboarding was not introduced until almost three months later.” Soufan will say.

@nocoolnamejim: How'd you find out that 200 suspects were killed?

@Genetic_Code
I don't know where Jim got his info, but this article accounts for 98 of the deaths. The Human Rights report giving that number was published on February 22, 2006. It is more than likely that there have been additional deaths since then.

And finding this information took me less than ten seconds, thanks to Google.

@Genetic_Code
@ChiliDragon
Yeah, it was something similar to Chili's link there. A human rights group. Sadly, I don't have the exact link handy so I have to fall back on Chili's link plus an additional couple of years since then. Hope that suffices.

Ooooh man did those Indian burns hurt! That could be a legit form of torture to replace waterboarding, if you ask me.

If I'm going to be honest, I'll admit I'm on the fence with torture. It will work a small percentage of the time, however inhumane it is, and believe me I'm well aware of how inhumane a lot of forms of torture are. I guess with me it's all a matter of situation. It's like saying physical retaliation is never necessary, when you know that sometimes it's completely necessary and the only way to reach someone.

The obvious answer to all of this is to get a hold of one of those truth slugs from the Romulans. Problem solved.

If only you had some photos to further prove your point!

@xboxrulze

Laurence Wilkerson who is Colin Powells Chief of Staff wrote:

What I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida. So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop. There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)

Essentially, what he is saying is that we tortured someone until he gave us false information to prove a Saddam/Al Qaeda link to support a policy of war with Iraq. As I said, torture is great for getting people to say what you want them to say. Not so good for getting them to tell you the truth.

@johnsteed7
I never said I agree with Obama on everything. I think that was a bad decision on his part. On the other hand, Obama has played the "long game" before and proven to be very shrewd.

And it would still be criminally unjustifiable even if it did work. How can we say if "they" torture "us" (a la the Nazis, the Vietcong, the KGB...) in the name of national security, it's wrong, but if "we" do it, it's for a "good cause"? The same sort of arguments and line of "us vs. them" thinking were used to justify slavery, the Trail of Tears, and a hundred other egregious injustices, too, and the same conclusion must be drawn: We cannot possibly hope to protect, defend, or uphold the Constitution and the principles of liberty by violating them, at home or abroad. Ever.

The Stalin story, is it true?

I understand why they tortured, but as you pointed out, it is still not right.

@tclvis
"We cannot possibly hope to protect, defend, or uphold the Constitution and the principles of liberty by violating them, at home or abroad. Ever."

Well said. This is one of those things that simply has to be more important than "protecting American lives". Because if we compromise on this, we lose everything.

@tclvis
Usually when I disagree with people I can at least see where they are coming from in a debate. Honest to god, I can't understand how any decent human being can defend torture as official government policy. I just can't.



@galerian86
Nah. It's a bit of a dark joke aimed at pointing out that countries that employ these techniques aren't really trying to get the TRUTH. They're only concerned with hearing what they want to hear. Many of these techniques were used to extract false confessions from captured American POWs during the Vietnam War and the Korean War for propaganda purposes.

The whole point is that if you hurt someone enough, they'll say what you want to hear, regardless of whether it is true or not. If you hurt ME enough (and it wouldn't take much because, being a liberal, I'm naturally an enormous wuss) I'd confess to killing Abraham Lincoln, even if his death DID happen before I was, strictly speaking, born.

@ChiliDragon
It is a slippery slope. A VERY slippery slope, that we're now on.

@ChiliDragon
@nocoolnamejim: I know I don't have any articles or people to quote to support this statement, but if I recall correctly from what I've read, many liberals support interpreting the constitution as a "living" document; that's how they found a way to read in abortion and gun bans as constitutional, among other things. I don't know if either of you believe in this kind of interpretation; however, if upholding the constitution is essential--and I agree it is--wouldn't you agree with interpreting the constitution based on the Founding Fathers' intentions, not as a living, adaptive set of guidelines for the times? Because if the constitution can be so easily compromised, torture isn't the only thing we should be concerned about. After all, a living constitution is an ever-changing constitution. It doesn't sound like a very steady foundation for America, if you ask me.

I, admittedly, don't know much about the constitution, living or not. It's nothing I can really debate without being intellectually dishonest. It's just a thought that occurred to me. Something to think about, anyway.