On torture: I Trust President Obama

[unblock]

22. that might be a tough moral quandary if that fantasy existed outside hollywood.

there are people willing to literally blow themselves to smithereens for their cause. suicide bombers.

not that that's a novel concept; there have always been people willing to lay down their lives for what, in their minds, is a just cause.

if all the other techniques don't work, it's because that particular person simply is willing to die before revealing any secrets they might have. torture has never been shown to extract any information that couldn't have been acquired though far more civilized methods. moreover, the information that does get extracted is usually itself highly suspect, just something said to stop the torture, if only temporarily. it then sends us on wild goose chases.


finally, that's simply and obviously *not* the reason torture is done. it's the excuse used to sell it to the masses. the reason it's done is to satisfy a sick need for gloating and power and to humiliate the captured prisoner.

you can tell this is the case because if it were done purely for the purpose of extracting information that couldn't be gotten otherwise, then there would be great regret in every statement about it. "we're terrible sorry to have to go to the last resort method of torture on this matter, but we've tried everything else and came up short, and due to the imminent threat involved, we're going to have to make a great exception to our principles of respect for prisoners and our international obligations under the geneva convention in this isolated case."

yeah, right. when was the last time you heard anything remotely like that? no, it's always yeah, we need to extract information, and by the way, these people are the lowest forms of scum alive and deserve a fate worse than death and 9/11, 9/11, 9/11!