On torture: I Trust President Obama [View all]

[Michigander_Life]

The world isn't black and white. There are nightmare scenarios that could occur at any time. We elect leaders like President Obama to make the most difficult decisions and then live with the consequences. I do not think he would have anyone tortured without an immediate, imminent, credible threat. But that's why we elect our leaders -- to make those decisions.

Using a completely hypothetical scenario, if our security agencies uncovered a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, had discovered that the bomb had already been smuggled onto our soil, and had apprehended one of the terrorists with direct knowledge of the pending attack, why shouldn't torture be on the table if all other means of extracting information necessary to thwart the attack have failed?

How many lives do we need to sacrifice on the altar of the moral highground?

Should such a scenario arise, it would behoove us not to exclude all available options, but rather to make completely transparent whatever course of action we choose.