Would you torture or have tortured a person who had the knowledge that would save the life of your child?
All completely false. The fastest way to obtain information from the most radical of enemy is pain. Those who disagree are politically motivated, or follow a misguided ideology. In the scenario I mentioned, the fastest, and most reliable way to save the innocent girls life is torture. This is an objective fact. If you still disagree with torture, then that is just your opinion and we will have to agree to disagree. But if it were ever your child in the hot seat and in need of help, Im positive you would feel different. Ive already addressed the issue of accurate vs inaccurate information. You must have missed it. - - - Updated - - - What if you KNOW he has the knowledge, because you have video of him stealing your child and a confession from him as such? Would you still feel the same way? I doubt it.
Because issues are not so black and white. There is a grey area. So that is why in SOME cases, where information obtained is easily verifieable and an innocent life is on the line and not alot of time, and the criminal in question is known factually as guilty...it is ABSOLUTELY justifiable. Your extremist mindset of black and white is the problem.
A better question is, should torture ever be legal? Easy answer: No. Beyond any ethical issues, once you open that can of worms you put everyone in jeopardy. Abuse of power happens. It is guaranteed. Innocent people will be tortured. It is guaranteed. So, should it be legal to abuse torture, and torture innocent people? How many people will suffer unjustly as compared to any advantages gained? How do you contain it? If we can justify torture for a terrorist threat, we can justify it for a criminal threat, and then a lesser threat, and a lesser one again. As with all things, we become desensitized. Eventually we might even see torture used as a form of entertainment. Think not? It has happened plenty of times before. And there is nothing new under the sun. Human nature has not changed so much over the last 2000 years. We still have the same blood-thirsty instincts as did the Romans watching the Christians being tortured and killed. But what about the ticking time-bomb scenario - that somehow we have magic knowledge that one person knows how to stop a nuclear detonation in New York or some other major city. I see it this way. It YOU were in charge of interrogations, and you knew for a fact that you could torture someone and get the information needed, would you worry about the law? Would you allow NY to go up in a mushroom cloud when you only need violate the law to stop it? If the confidence is that high, then the interrogator should ignore the law and suffer the consequences. It he saves NY or not he should be prosecuted for breaking the law. It is the price of patriotism. And instead of untold numbers of innocent people suffering horribly under the tyranny of an abusive government, we have one patriot who fell on his sword when everything counted on it. The beauty of it is that anyone who uses torture would have to be 100% certain before putting their own head on the chopping block. It would be an agonizing act of patriotism NEVER to be taken lightly. The personal cost to the torturer guarantees it. Problem solved. It is the duty of every soldier and agent of the government to act if needed and then suffer the consequences for breaking the law.
Of course it's justified, if it's used on an aspiring murderer when it could possibly extract information that leads to the destruction his aspiration. Oh sure, once we start torturing terrorists, surely the torture of shoplifters is just around the corner.
So you simply do not trust the government enough to allow them such a power? Fair enough. Simply agree to disagree.
Beyond that, there is no evidence that we should. How many examples of governments in history with no corruption or abuse of power, can you name? This is why I oppose the death penalty. NEVER give any government the power to kill its own people. There is no evidence that governments can be trusted with this power. And there is abundant evidence to the contrary... to the point of being self evident. You can make a faith-based argument and agree to disagree. But I suggest either showing examples of perfect governments, or justify torturing innocent people, with no way to know how many in the decades to come. Those are your logical options. Would you be willing to be tortured in place of someone else, for the sake of the common good? If not, then how can you condemn others to this fate? How is this logically and morally justified?
Why not use torture in place of time served in prison? It is far cheaper to torture people than lock them up. Oh wait, I think someone already thought of this back in the dark ages.... So it's already a proven method.
There is no such thing as perfection. So making a decision based on that level of evidence is ignorant. A governments job is to protect us, and it should do so the best it can. If someone is going to try and kill us, and torturing them can stop it, then the government should do so. As far as evidence? Use google and look up a time someone was tortured and gave good information. There. But as long as the kidnapper/murderer/etc is known as the person the police/government is looking for and the information they obtain from him can be quickly and easily verified there is no argument outside of "i dont trust the govt" that would be anywhere near reasonable. - - - Updated - - - Because that would not keep the bad person off the streets. THAT should be self evident.
The report on the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques (torture) by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence debunked all of the claims made by the CIA that any valuable information was gained by the use of torture. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...cias-claims-and-what-the-committee-found.html
A statement or opinion based upon myth is not a fact. Interrogation experts all dispute the claim that torture is the most reliable means of obtaining accurate information in a timely manner. Here's a link to five myths about torture well worth reading. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html Of interest is Myth #2 So in the example of the kidnapped girl with 24 hours before she requires life-saving medication the use of torture that is unlikely to obtain any information at all is going to prevent the use of interrogation techniques that are known to work in obtaining accurate information. While conventional interrogation may not yield positive information to save the girl's life the use of torture significantly reduces the probability of obtaining that information. No, it's not just my opinion. My opinion is based upon the facts related to the historical use of torture as an interrogation technique and the conclusions by experts on interrogation techniques that are fairly unanimous in stating that torture is far less effective in obtaining valuable information than the conventional interrogation techniques that rely on building trust and a bond between the interrogator and the person being interrogated. "A pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers" will obtain far more accurate information in significantly less time than torture that is unlikely to yield any information at all. That makes you wrong twice. 1) Torture doesn't result in accurate information and; 2) I'm going to trust the experts when it comes to interrogation of a suspect. And we've addressed "No information at all" is the most likely result of the use of torture (above). Given the choice I would insist on torture not being used because I know the most effective means of obtaining any information is by the use of conventional interrogation techniques that rely on the bond and establishment of trust between the interrogator and the suspect. Why would anyone in their right mind want to dramatically reduce the possibility of obtaining accurate information in the shortest amount of time by torturing the suspect? Well, if it happened to us both then my kid would probably live because conventional interrogation would be used and your kid would almost certainly die because you tortured the suspect. That's what the experts would tell us and if you choose to ignore the advice of the experts then that's your choice. In the meantime I'm also going to fully back compliance with the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution as well as supporting the full enforcement of our statutory laws based upon the 8th Amendment that prohibit the use of any form of torture or coercion in the interrogations of criminal (including terrorist) suspects. You might want to live in a country like Communist Russia or Nazi Germany or Iran under the reign of the Shah where torture was common place but I do not. PS By the way in the case of a criminal kidnapping if torture is used at all, whether the girl lives or dies, it's a "get out of jail card for free" for the suspect in our criminal justice system. Federal courts would overturn any conviction based upon the violation of the 8th Amendment. The violation of the US Constitution is of far greater importance than even the death of the child.
The CIA analysis has been questioned and found deficient. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R43906.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042002818.html Obama has clearly admitted from his own mouth that the actions of the CIA's EIT yielded a cornucopia of intelligence.
Yeah, innocent folks aren't killed in war and such so war is never justified. I guess innocent people are killed by cars so we will have to eliminate them, too.
The experts are only saying that due to political motivation, and ideology. But torture is objectively the best and fastest way to obtain accurate information when time is limited and information is quickly and easily verified. This is a self attesting truth. The law and courts can always be modified to put him behind bars regardless of torture, so another pointless argument.
If you can quickly verify something, then you already have the assets in place to know it to begin with. You just haven't utilized them well enough.
