When Americans Torture, Americans Die

Americans will die anyway. If there is a 'ticking-bomb' situation and lives can be saved, I am not only willing to do the torturing but would be morally and ethically obligated to do so.

Holly,

If someone tells you there is a ticking time bomb situation the odds are you are getting lousy Intel.

I'm sick of our torture policy being based off of 24 episodes. If we're in an actual, factual ticking time bomb, let the guy get a Presidential pardon.

But here's a fun scenario for you Holly: Ticking time bomb, but we don't have the terrorist. We just know where his (wholly innocent) family is, and can broadcast whatever we do to them to the terrorist.

So, how long are you willing to sodomize the guy's four-year old with a spiked bat in order to convince the terrorist to divulge the information?

Clock's atickin'....

One can never be certain that "lives can be saved" by instigating torture. I can think of no moral or ethical obligation for torture. I'm reading Richard Clarke's books about national security, and in it he emphasizes over and again the unreliability of information obtained by torture. The victims of this mess in India were, we are finding, tortured prior to being killed.

Torture is a slippery slope that stopping-short-of would contain a free-fall between the most vile, basic human instincts and some measure of civilized existence. We should aspire to keep off that slope.

I wonder how Holly squares that view of torture with her religious beliefs if she holds any.