Digression

[Swordsman]

Here's a great essay I came across the other day; note that it deals with both assassinations and pre-emptive strikes.

--------------------

The Case for Torture

By Michael Levin

It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible, a throwback to a more brutal age. Enlightened societies reject it outright, and regimes suspected of using it risk the wrath of the United States.
I believe this attitude is unwise. There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory. Moreover, these situations are moving from the realm of imagination to fact.

Death: Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4 unless ... here follow the usual demands for money and release of his friends from jail. Suppose, further, that he is caught at 10 a.m on the fateful day, but preferring death to failure, won't disclose where the bomb is. What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, arraign him, millions of people will die. If the only way to save those lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating possible pain, what grounds can there be for not doing so? I suggest there are none. In any case, I ask you to face the question with an open mind.

Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality. Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is far more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands. If you caught the terrorist, could you sleep nights knowing that millions died because you couldn't bring yourself to apply the electrodes?
Once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them. You must now face more realistic cases involving more modest numbers. Someone plants a bomb on a jumbo jet. I He alone can disarm it, and his demands cannot be met (or they can, we refuse to set a precedent by yielding to his threats). Surely we can, we must, do anything to the extortionist to save the passengers. How can we tell 300, or 100, or 10 people who never asked to be put in danger, "I'm sorry you'll have to die in agony, we just couldn't bring ourselves to . . . "

Here are the results of an informal poll about a third, hypothetical, case. Suppose a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. I asked four mothers if they would approve of torturing kidnappers if that were necessary to get their own newborns back. All said yes, the most "liberal" adding that she would like to administer it herself.

I am not advocating torture as punishment. Punishment is addressed to deeds irrevocably past. Rather, I am advocating torture as an acceptable measure for preventing future evils. So understood, it is far less objectionable than many extant punishments. Opponents of the death penalty, for example, are forever insisting that executing a murderer will not bring back his victim (as if the purpose of capital punishment were supposed to be resurrection, not deterrence or retribution). But torture, in the cases described, is intended not to bring anyone back but to keep innocents from being dispatched. The most powerful argument against using torture as a punishment or to secure confessions is that such practices disregard the rights of the individual. Well, if the individual is all that important, and he is, it is correspondingly important to protect the rights of individuals threatened by terrorists. If life is so valuable that it must never be taken, the lives of the innocents must be saved even at the price of hurting the one who endangers them.

Better precedents for torture are assassination and pre-emptive attack. No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. (The Allies did assassinate Heydrich.) Americans would be angered to learn that Roosevelt could have had Hitler killed in 1943, thereby shortening the war and saving millions of lives, but refused on moral grounds. Similarly, if nation A learns that nation B is about to launch an unprovoked attack, A has a right to save itself by destroying B's military capability first. In the same way, if the police can by torture save those who would otherwise die at the hands of kidnappers or terrorists, they must.

Idealism:There is an important difference between terrorists and their victims that should mute talk of the terrorists' "rights." The terrorist's victims are at risk unintentionally, not having asked to be endangered. But the terrorist knowingly initiated his actions. Unlike his victims, he volunteered for the risks of his deed. By threatening to kill for profit or idealism, he renounces civilized standards, and he can have no complaint if civilization tries to thwart him by whatever means necessary.

Just as torture is justified only to save lives (not extort confessions or incantations), it is justifiably administered only to those known to hold innocent lives in their hands. Ah, but how call the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse? won't "WE" turn into "THEM?" Questions like these are disingenuous in a world in which terrorists proclaim themselves and perform for television. The name of their game is public recognition. After all, you can't very well intimidate a government into releasing your freedom fighters unless you announce that it is your group that has seized its embassy. "Clear guilt" is difficult to define, but when 40 million people see a group of masked gunmen seize an airplane on the evening news, there is not much question about who the perpetrators are. There will be hard cases where the situation is murkier. Nonetheless, a line demarcating the legitimate use of torture can be drawn. Torture only the obviously guilty, and only for the sake of saving innocents, and the line between "US" and "THEM" will remain clear.

There is little danger that the Western democracies will lose their way if they choose to inflict pain as one way of preserving order. Paralysis in the face of evil is the greater danger. Some day soon a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them. We had better start thinking about this.

[counter riposte]

not quite sure how to respond to that.

[MikeHarm]

There is no right way to do the wrong thing, this is a prime example of the sort of moral fuzzyheadedness and subjectivist nonsense that can be used to justify any behavior no matter how openly evil or despicable.

[Swordsman]

Sometimes we're forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. Would you rather the bomb go off?

[darius]

You'd think that in this current economic climate, the Libertarians would have something better to do than wax hypothetical about Tom Clancy movie plots.

darius

[Swordsman]

Current economic climate? The article is several years old, possibly even pre-Clinton. And whether you think it relevant to the "current economic climate" or not, is the point not still valid, distasteful though it may be?

[DHCJr]

Here's a question. How do you know there is the bomb. Let us say the 'Terrorist' says there is the bomb. Then he is tortured, but doesn't say anything more and no bomb goes off. I am sure you will suddenly have a line going around the block of lawyers willing to enter a suit for the victim of the torture. How much could he earn? Can you be sure there is a bomb or poison or whatever?

[epeefencer74]

I don't think it matters whether there is *really* a bomb or whatever. So long as the person threatens then it must be taken as real. The moment he threatens to do something as drastic as bomb a public place then he has forfeited any rights that society had accorded him, because he has ignored the rights of the people he has threatened. Therefore it is the duty of the authorities to force his hand and tell them if there really is a bomb and where it is. Why do you think bomb hoaxes are so frowned upon and punishable by law? Simply because the hoax causes as much disruption and anxiety as the real thing.

[Philistine]

Originally posted by Swordsman
Current economic climate? The article is several years old, possibly even pre-Clinton. {snip}

Actually, it dates from the Reagan administration. It was originally printed in Newsweek in 1982. It's been reprinted in numerous philosophy and ethics texts.

Two questions, which I don't think are adquately answered by the essay:

1. What is the basis for the implicit assumption made that torture is more effective than other methods of interrogation (drugs, for example)? This does not seem self-evident with regards to the situations posited, fanatical terrorists.

2. Where does the logic stop? I can readily imagine a terrorist who is resistant to personal torture being moved to give information if it were his child or other family members who were being tortured in front of him. Whould we do that? How many lives have to be at stake? 10,000? 100? 2? What if you need to torture someone to find a person to torture to give up the location of the person who is ultimately the one who you need to torture to stop the bomb? Assume the others are innocent of the bomb-making but (not surprisingly, perhaps) don't want to divulge the location of the ultimate bomb-maker because they fear he will be tortured?

--Philistine

[DHCJr]

A very good point. Or take the example of some gangs, there are those who know of where someone is, but will not tell because they fear for their own lifes or the life of loved ones. Do we torture innocents or maybe their family, just because they are worried that they or their families will be killed.

Epee fencer, I was only supposing what could be done in the U.S. Whoever did the torture or authorized it would be in worse trouble then the person who stated their was a bomb. Freedom of Speech is so ingrained in the culture. I'm not saying it is right, but in the U.S. I don't think it could happen.

Let's not say the person stated they had a bomb. Let us just say a ransom note is delivered. Do we torture the delivery person? Suppose we "know" who the ransom note came from. Suppose we do torture this person and not only is there no bomb, but we find out later we were wrong that this person sent the note. The lawyers again would have a field day.

How do we know for sure. I also like the question about, why not drugs?

[epeefencer74]

It is in situations like this that I am reminded of the quote " Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" . It becomes very hard to tell who is the real perpertrator in this case, and no way to make reparations when wrong. It becomes hard to stop at the really guilty ones and not involve their relations, once this sort of justification gets going. I guess that's why you only find it evident and blantently so in autocratic dictatorships, where the state maintains absolute control and justice is dispensed at the pleasure of the state and not an independent judicial body. Then we come back to the root of the essay, "How do we stop the damage a terrorist plans to do when we have him in hand". I don't think there is an easy answer to it.

Over here we have the Internal Security Act, which allows the government to detain, without trial, persons suspected of being a terrrorist, rebel or insurrectionist, until such time that they are deemed harmless. Even this is not foolproof. You have to catch the buggers first, and if they've already planted a bomb well, let's just hope our bomb squad can get to it fast enough.

Oh yes on the matter of drugs, what if the person being question is allergic to the drug and dies, and is later found to be innocent. Won't you also have an equally long queue of lawyers representing the dead guy's family?

[Gav]

Oh dear.

Let's start with torture. Do you know what torture is? It's not just about beating someone up and repeatedly asking a question till they give you the answer. Sophisticated torture involves humiliation, degradation, drugs, psychology ... pain. It takes time and is exrtremely efficicent. That is, you can easily get an answer from someone being tortured. Torturing for information s extremely efficient because you will always get information, people who are tortured will tell you just about anything you want to hear to stop you from torturing them. Note the phrase, "what you want to hear", the information extracted under torture isn't guarenteed to be accurate. If you want to read a chilling fictional account of torture read 1984, if you want read chilling modern accounts go to the Amnesty site and have a look around there's some examples there and then ask yourself if you want to be part of a society that does this? Ask yourself if you would be willing to accept torture 'for the common good' if you were mistaken for a terrorist? Would you be willing to accept it knowing that it was 'only you' that they had made a mistake with.

Didn't think so.

[Inquartata]

Additionally, while there might be some justification in very narrow circumstances, there is the unfortunate tendency of governments to engage in what is known as "policy creep". That is to say, to extend a "successful" policy to more and more situations, and milder, less exigent ones. Torture in a singular case such as that described is not the danger; it is that it will set precedent, and that there will be a second "exception" made, then another, and another, and eventually you may wind up with the Khmer Rouge or the Stasi....

[Gav]

It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible, a throwback to a more brutal age. Enlightened societies reject it outright, and regimes suspected of using it risk the wrath of the United States.

“ … regimes suspected of using it risk the wrath of the United States.” Torture ie regularly practiced all over the world and I don’t see much wrath being meted out.

“There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.” Morally mandatory? Who gets to decide when it is morally acceptable? Considering that what is moral is elastic and changes over time then the circumstances that allow torture will change over time too.

Death: Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4 unless ... here follow the usual demands for money and release of his friends from jail. Suppose, further, that he is caught at 10 a.m on the fateful day, but preferring death to failure, won't disclose where the bomb is. What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, arraign him, millions of people will die. If the only way to save those lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating possible pain, what grounds can there be for not doing so? I suggest there are none. In any case, I ask you to face the question with an open mind.

There is no guarantee that the information gained will be precise and accurate. People being subjected to torture will tell you whatever they think you want to hearnot necessarily the truth. Historically torture has been deemed to be an inconsistent way to gain accurate information. Torture is also time consuming there is no way you can be sure when they will ‘crack’ by the time you have finished with the terrorist it may be too late in any case. Highly specific scenario’s such as this are very misleading.

Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality. Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is far more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands. If you caught the terrorist, could you sleep nights knowing that millions died because you couldn't bring yourself to apply the electrodes?

“Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional?” Wasn’t the American constitution created and modified over time to guarentee certain rights. If you violate the US constitution aren’t you moving in a way that is contrary to US society. Isn’t the constitution there to provide your society with structure?

How many lives rate the use of torture 1, 10, 10000 … Whose lives are worth using torture for? Does 1 Black or Hispanic person equal 1 white person? When you start making judgement along these lines then it become easier to have these judgements expanded in the future. In short it’s a slippert slope.

Here are the results of an informal poll about a third, hypothetical, case. Suppose a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. I asked four mothers if they would approve of torturing kidnappers if that were necessary to get their own newborns back. All said yes, the most "liberal" adding that she would like to administer it herself.

This paragraph deals with a subject that is emotive. The mothers in question cannot be relied upon to make sound judgement as they are, as the result of their situation, automatically emotionally involved. How on earth are you going to get to a situation where you have no baby but you have the kidnapper and yet torture is the only way to find it? This is a loaded question.

I am not advocating torture as punishment. Punishment is addressed to deeds irrevocably past. Rather, I am advocating torture as an acceptable measure for preventing future evils. So understood, it is far less objectionable than many extant punishments. Opponents of the death penalty, for example, are forever insisting that executing a murderer will not bring back his victim (as if the purpose of capital punishment were supposed to be resurrection, not deterrence or retribution). But torture, in the cases described, is intended not to bring anyone back but to keep innocents from being dispatched. The most powerful argument against using torture as a punishment or to secure confessions is that such practices disregard the rights of the individual. Well, if the individual is all that important, and he is, it is correspondingly important to protect the rights of individuals threatened by terrorists. If life is so valuable that it must never be taken, the lives of the innocents must be saved even at the price of hurting the one who endangers them.

Again lots of references to Terrorists. Who are the terrorists? “One man’s terrorist is another mans freedom fighter” goes the maxim. Who gets to say who is a terrorist and who isn’t? wouldn’t it be easy and slightly seductive to able to say, “that man is a terrorist please incarcerate him, torture him and find out about his friends while you’re about it” just because you don’t like that person or even his social group. This was quite a common practice in medieval Britain and also the USSR.

Better precedents for torture are assassination and pre-emptive attack. No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. (The Allies did assassinate Heydrich.) Americans would be angered to learn that Roosevelt could have had Hitler killed in 1943, thereby shortening the war and saving millions of lives, but refused on moral grounds. Similarly, if nation A learns that nation B is about to launch an unprovoked attack, A has a right to save itself by destroying B's military capability first. In the same way, if the police can by torture save those who would otherwise die at the hands of kidnappers or terrorists, they must.

“Better precedents for torture are assassination and pre-emptive attack. No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. " In fact Allied leaders did flinch from assassinating Hitler as they realised that the war would probably drag on longer. In fact the Germans tried to assassinate Hitler themselves.

“Similarly, if nation A learns that nation B is about to launch an unprovoked attack, A has a right to save itself by destroying B's military capability first. In the same way, if the police can by torture save those who would otherwise die at the hands of kidnappers or terrorists, they must.” Pre-emptive action worked for the Cold war due to mutually assured destruction however the world wasn’t a better place for it. It is precisely the fallout from the Cold War that we are currently trying to wrestle with. The Iranian secret police did use torture whenever it could to prop up the Shah before he fell and probably contributed to his fall. Any police force allowed the excuse of torture is risking the long term health of the nation.

Idealism:There is an important difference between terrorists and their victims that should mute talk of the terrorists' "rights." The terrorist's victims are at risk unintentionally, not having asked to be endangered. But the terrorist knowingly initiated his actions. Unlike his victims, he volunteered for the risks of his deed. By threatening to kill for profit or idealism, he renounces civilized standards, and he can have no complaint if civilization tries to thwart him by whatever means necessary.

More about terrorists. It strikes me that terrorists in this context are the bogeymen. They lurk around every corner, in every cupboard, under every bush planting bombs. Frightened people are people easily led. If you tell people to do something then they probably will do it – witness the German nation under the Nazi’s relationship with the ‘Final Solution’. If you say to people, “by doing X [bad thing] there will be no bogeymen - all I ask is Y [other bad thing]” then a lot of people are going to say, “ok”. Better to take a little pain then face the consequences isn’t it

Just as torture is justified only to save lives (not extort confessions or incantations), it is justifiably administered only to those known to hold innocent lives in their hands. Ah, but how call the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse? won't "WE" turn into "THEM?" Questions like these are disingenuous in a world in which terrorists proclaim themselves and perform for television. The name of their game is public recognition. After all, you can't very well intimidate a government into releasing your freedom fighters unless you announce that it is your group that has seized its embassy. "Clear guilt" is difficult to define, but when 40 million people see a group of masked gunmen seize an airplane on the evening news, there is not much question about who the perpetrators are. There will be hard cases where the situation is murkier. Nonetheless, a line demarcating the legitimate use of torture can be drawn. Torture only the obviously guilty, and only for the sake of saving innocents, and the line between "US" and "THEM" will remain clear.

“Just as torture is justified only to save lives (not extort confessions or incantations), it is justifiably administered only to those known to hold innocent lives in their hands.” Isn’t handing over the firing sequence for a bomb or the whereabouts of your co-conspirators a confession by another name? Your essayist also talks about media recognition. What about finding out about why people are behaving in this way and fix the cause rather than just push your propaganda instead of theirs. Your essayist also talks about “hard cases where the situation is murkier” again who gets to decide when to employ who is obviously guilty and who is not?

“Torture only the obviously guilty, and only for the sake of saving innocents, and the line between "US" and "THEM" will remain clear.” Will it?

There is little danger that the Western democracies will lose their way if they choose to inflict pain as one way of preserving order. Paralysis in the face of evil is the greater danger. Some day soon a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them. We had better start thinking about this.

In short this person is talking c**p.

[135711]

Originally posted by counter riposte
not quite sure how to respond to that.

Counter: I would step back, parry and riposte.

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Swordsman
I believe this attitude is unwise. There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory. Moreover, these situations are moving from the realm of imagination to fact.

insert slippery slope argument/example here.

Death: Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4 unless ... here follow the usual demands for money and release of his friends from jail. Suppose, further, that he is caught at 10 a.m on the fateful day, but preferring death to failure, won't disclose where the bomb is. What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, arraign him, millions of people will die. If the only way to save those lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating possible pain, what grounds can there be for not doing so? I suggest there are none. In any case, I ask you to face the question with an open mind.

information obtained by coercive techniques is notoriously unreliable. There are many forms of coercion which are far more morally acceptable, but are not admissable in court. the reason that they are not has nothing to do with ethics, and everything to do with reliability. regardless of my feelings on torture, I am opposed to using techniques with such a small rate of success.

Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality.

But hundreds of millions of lives surely outweigh the lives of millions. By allowing use of such techniques, you are making those techniques more acceptable. this reduces the quality of life for ALL of the countries citizens.

Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is far more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands. If you caught the terrorist, could you sleep nights knowing that millions died because you couldn't bring yourself to apply the electrodes?

this gets back to the fact that applying the electrodes will NOT necessarily save those lives. the correct (morally and pragmatically speaking) course of action is evacuation and investigation.

Once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them.

well, I DON'T concede that torture is justified. EVER. thus, problem solved. no need to debate where the slippery slope ends.

You must now face more realistic cases involving more modest numbers. Someone plants a bomb on a jumbo jet. I He alone can disarm it, and his demands cannot be met (or they can, we refuse to set a precedent by yielding to his threats). Surely we can, we must, do anything to the extortionist to save the passengers. How can we tell 300, or 100, or 10 people who never asked to be put in danger, "I'm sorry you'll have to die in agony, we just couldn't bring ourselves to . . . "

and this is EXACTLY why we should not enter the slippery slope. first its millions of lives, then thousands, then hundreds, tens, 1. eventually, we start looking at things other than threat of death. we torture to obtain confessions to crimes like rape, kidnapping. soon, any violent crime, down to muggings and armed robberies. soon, we don't bother to differentiate between robberies, armed or not. As heinous a thought as this seems, this countries moral center had frequently changed drastically over time. allowing a start on that slow path may well lead to such reprehensible results.

Here are the results of an informal poll about a third, hypothetical, case. Suppose a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. I asked four mothers if they would approve of torturing kidnappers if that were necessary to get their own newborns back. All said yes, the most "liberal" adding that she would like to administer it herself.

ask the same women about torture as a general moral question, and I am willing to bet that not one of them will condone it. what the auther has succeeded in proving here is that there is a strong natural protection instinct in mothers. Gee, there's a shock.

I am not advocating torture as punishment. Punishment is addressed to deeds irrevocably past. Rather, I am advocating torture as an acceptable measure for preventing future evils. So understood, it is far less objectionable than many extant punishments.

I do NOT find it less objectionable. the ends do NOT justify the means. Medical experiments were carried out in the concentration camps during WWII. Do the medical advances resulting from the torturous and reprehensible treatment of those people acceptable?

Opponents of the death penalty, for example, are forever insisting that executing a murderer will not bring back his victim (as if the purpose of capital punishment were supposed to be resurrection, not deterrence or retribution). But torture, in the cases described, is intended not to bring anyone back but to keep innocents from being dispatched.

As a tangential note, the death penalty is NOT a deterrent, as a very famous study once showed.

The most powerful argument against using torture as a punishment or to secure confessions is that such practices disregard the rights of the individual. Well, if the individual is all that important, and he is, it is correspondingly important to protect the rights of individuals threatened by terrorists. If life is so valuable that it must never be taken, the lives of the innocents must be saved even at the price of hurting the one who endangers them.

Again, I would note that torture and other forms of coercion are not sources of reliable intelligence. Thus, one of the best arguments against their use is simple pragmatism.

Better precedents for torture are assassination and pre-emptive attack. No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. (The Allies did assassinate Heydrich.) Americans would be angered to learn that Roosevelt could have had Hitler killed in 1943, thereby shortening the war and saving millions of lives, but refused on moral grounds.

So, we are to believe that withouth Hitler, every German soldier would simply lay down their weapons? Also, this example is VERY different, as it is during time of open war.

Similarly, if nation A learns that nation B is about to launch an unprovoked attack, A has a right to save itself by destroying B's military capability first.

actually, I don't believe they do have that right. the problem is that there is not necessarily any proof of nation B's intent. one could invade one's neighbor on trumped up charges. If they have this information, might I suggest that they take an example from Israel during the six days war: set up a hair trigger system. As soon as the attack started, preplanned countermeasures allowed Israel to immediately go on the offensive.

In the same way, if the police can by torture save those who would otherwise die at the hands of kidnappers or terrorists, they must.

pragmatism, pragmatism, pragmatism.

By threatening to kill for profit or idealism, he renounces civilized standards, and he can have no complaint if civilization tries to thwart him by whatever means necessary.

I see. there goes the geneva convention's guidlines on the treatment of POWs. after all, they have renounced civilized standards by "threating to kill (and killing) for profit or idealism". Yet, I would doubt that the author of this essay would think that Iraqi intelligence was well within their rights to torture POWs to prevent the deaths of additional Iraqis.

Just as torture is justified only to save lives (not extort confessions or incantations), it is justifiably administered only to those known to hold innocent lives in their hands. Ah, but how call the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse? won't "WE" turn into "THEM?" Questions like these are disingenuous in a world in which terrorists proclaim themselves and perform for television. The name of their game is public recognition. After all, you can't very well intimidate a government into releasing your freedom fighters unless you announce that it is your group that has seized its embassy. "Clear guilt" is difficult to define, but when 40 million people see a group of masked gunmen seize an airplane on the evening news, there is not much question about who the perpetrators are. There will be hard cases where the situation is murkier. Nonetheless, a line demarcating the legitimate use of torture can be drawn. Torture only the obviously guilty, and only for the sake of saving innocents, and the line between "US" and "THEM" will remain clear.

really? clear? who are they?? I would bet that many different people on this board would have many different definitions of which groups are terrorists, and which are freedom fighters. Chechnya, N. Ireland, Israel, East Timor, the Balkans. almost everybody sympathizes with SOME group which others consider terrorists.

There is little danger that the Western democracies will lose their way if they choose to inflict pain as one way of preserving order. Paralysis in the face of evil is the greater danger. Some day soon a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them. We had better start thinking about this.

As previously stated, torture is not even a reliable way to save them.

btw, as a semi-related side note, the suspension of writs of habeus corpis regarding UNITED STATES CITIZENS on the basis of the "war on terror" is another heinous breach of the bill of rights. It should be noted that they didn't suspend habeus until it was time for them to bring their case. that is to say, what caused them to treat Jose Padilla as an "enemy combatant" was the fact that they couldn't find enough evidence to charge him. His lawyer showed up at the courthouse, and was told that she no longer had a client, as Jose Padilla was no longer permitted a lawyer, and she was then repeatedly denied the ability to see him. Luckily, she didn't give up that easily, and sued for habeus corpis. The most frightening (though funniest) part of this is the government's argument against that appeal: they said that it was invalid because it wasn't signed by Padilla. . OF COURSE it wasn't signed by Padilla! the government wouldn't allow the lawyer OR the pap