Apologists for Torture

You can think of an argument for torture, right? We've all seen it a million times in a million movies. It's indelibly etched into our collective conscience. We've got the bad guy(s) who know where the bad stuff (bombs, nukes who knows?) is and we have to get this critical information out of him. What do we do?

Torture the bastard! Make him scream until he tells us everything. Then we go diffuse the bombs and save the world.

Isn't that how it goes? Of course the real world is a little more complex than Hollywood might let on. I have yet to hear of a real life example of this ever happening. Sadly very few bad guys create elaborate death machines that can be deactivated at the last moment.

A supposed intellectual argument for the use of torture can be found here. The short form is, "The bad guys are going to get us; let's torture them." From the apologists lips:

Put differently, so long as the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks against innocents is taken seriously, as it must be, it is neither practicable nor morally persuasive to absolutely prohibit the physical coercion or even outright torture of captured terrorist plotters—undoubtedly evils, but lesser evils than preventable mass murder.

Notice the language here. It's chilling. "So long as the threat to large-scale terrorist attacks against innocents is taken seriously..." Oh, I see. Once large scale terrorist attacks against innocents is no longer taken seriously we can go back to not torturing people, but until then: torture, torture, torture. Great argument.

If you take the pains to read the post you'll find that the most important element in any debate is never even mentioned. Namely, is torture effective in deterring or stopping future terrorist attacks? Is torture effective at getting good information? It's just assumed that torturing works.

Torture is wrong. It does not yield reliable information. People who are tortured will say anything to make the pain stop. Go to The Center for Victims of Torture to learn more. There are no good reasons to torture.

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