On Wed, 13 May 2009 06:04:18 -0500, thunder
wrote:

On Tue, 12 May 2009 15:50:23 -0400, Wizard of Woodstock wrote:


1 - The "dirty hands" dilemma which is really a cost/benefit analysis.
The usual circumstances are the "ticking bomb" scenario in which a bomb
is set to go off and kill thousands of people - the cost of harming one
human life to save thousands of human lives is defensible and/or
excusable. This argument basically states that while morally
indefensible, the end result justifies the means.

If, in truth, there were a "ticking bomb", the torture argument does
become hazier, but the reality is that scenario is extremely rare, and
doesn't apply in this case. This was torture used for plain old
"ordinary" intelligence. When you put people in a violent situation,
there will be torture, and illegal killings. That can be put down as
"**** happens", but when you allow torture as policy, you place this
country on the same level as Pinochet's Chile, Stalin's Soviet Union,
Hitler's Germany...

To me, it isn't whether torture works or not, it's about what it says
about us. We're ****in' barbarians.

The argument is a valid one - how often would it happen is a major
component of this debate and one that should be recognized as a valid
counter argument.

However, the counter argument dismisses the main point and dodges the
hard question - what if. The problem, from my perspective, is scale.
The example of a single event with the potential of killing thousands
is a little extreme, but it has happened and it isn't a stretch of
imagination to understand that more may have been in the offing.

The examples you presented also dodge the main question - Hitler,
Stalin and Pinochet used torture as a political instrument and not as
a technique to gain military intelligence to assess potential threats
- Dershowitz also makes that distinction and argues that there is a
moral imperative to protect the lives of citizens - another way to put
it is that a single evil to benefit the common good, while morally
questionable, is defensible and excusable. At it's heart, that is the
argument - can torture be defended as being a valid technique when
time and lack of intelligence is of the essence.

To me, the term "torture" has been expanded beyond any common sense.
The International Conventions proscribe the use of almost all
cohersive tactics - even those that are relatively benign such as
hallucinogens, "truth" serums and other passive techniques (sleep
deprivation, sound/light, etc.). That just seems to me, in this day
and age of advanced medical technology, that these types of cohersive
tactics should be considered as a valid intelligence tool and should
be used to gain intelligence not available via normal methods.