BB,
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
makkun wrote:
…Any move from this position is, even the slightest hesitation, invites rightful criticism. Everything else - nifty legal definitions of practices which just fly under the torture radar included - is bullshitting yourself out of a moral morast.
…
Mine is a moral/ethical argument, not a legal one. “We” are supposed to be better than “them” - by faffing about on technicalities “we” reveal the ethically thin ground “we” are standing on.
Makkun
Makkun,
Allow me to focus on this one small point, and to use the ultimate hypothetical, which was somewhat borrowed from the show “24”:
The hypo:
You have a terrorist in your custody. You know with certainty that this terrorist has information that will allow you to prevent a nuclear device’s explosion in a major city. This terrorist refuses to divulge the information.
Would you still be against using torture in that instance?
If the answer is yes, then you indeed hold an absolute moral position against torture. If not, we’re arguing about where to draw the permissability line, not about whether it’s ever permissible.
Personally, given high enough stakes, I think it should be allowable (which is not to say I think it should be commonplace, or even relatively rare – it should be something that could be used in the most dire of circumstances).[/quote]
Yes, it is still wrong to torture someone under these circumstances. And any sane policy maker makes sure that there is no loophole in the justice system that allows it - because it will undoubtedly be abused.
But back to your hypothetical question: If I were the commander with the prisoner who knows about the bomb. I don’t know - maybe and hypothetically I should have to make the ultimate sacrifice, get the information by torture, and then hand myself over to the authorities to be punished severely (doing proper jailtime), be dishonourably discharged, and publicly forever dishonoured. Does it make my wrong a right? No. Would it save lives - hopefully. But no state can allow its executive to condone acts of torture, and that would be the price that would have to be paid. Quid pro quo - my suffering for his. And that would not make me a good man, or get me off the hook like Jack Bauer from “24”. But that is purely hypothetical, off course.
The problem is, if there is no real transparency (whether by no external controls, secret prisons, second class prisoners, fuzzy torture definitions, etc.) - as it is the case with the US in the “war on terror” - there is enough room for people to think they are Jack Bauer, doing the “right thing” for their country; while they are just bastards who (almost) torture in pursuit of some higher goal, and end up betraying their ideals and making their country look bad.
Hypothetically yours 
Makkun