The compelling argument against torture is that it's ineffective, not that it's evil

The compelling argument against torture is that it's ineffective, not that it's evil. Oh, sure it's evil. Sure, it violates the Geneva convention. But I'm going to argue that those are pretty irrelevant things today.

Three years ago I would have said, "it's evil, it's inhumane, and it violates our treaty obligations as much as our values" was enough of an argument to not engage in torture. Those are, in fact, the arguments everybody made against torture a few years back. And those arguments failed. They didn't just fail within the Bush administration--I wouldn't expect them to be persuaded on the issue. But they also failed to move the Republican party in Congress and a good embarassing chunk of the Democrats there, too.

Worse yet, the argument that our country was doing evil, the photographs of Abu Ghraib, the horrific reports from Guantanamo, the revelations of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and the Afghan "Salt Pit" and the common use of extraordinary rendition to countries less squeamish about torture all failed to move the American people to demand of their top civil servants that we stop using torture. Leading churchmen of this country stood up and said we needed to torture. Jesus's suggestion that we love our enemies as our brothers is obviously quaint and outmoded in their eyes. Republican presidential candidates said they were "looking for Jack Bauer" and that they didn't want these criminals to have access to, God forbid, lawyers. Even some Democrats would only speak against torture while leaving some carefully worded wiggle room. The rule of law in this country is apparently as quaint and anachronistic as Jesus.

Even anecdotes about several perfectly innocent people being arrested and tortured failed to elicit much public outrage--outrage that should have been universal and deafening. The defense is "better safe than sorry" or "hey, these things happen in war" or "you gotta look at the big picture." I guess that's true since the people, who are the source of national sovereignty, don't seem to sweat the particulars here. But no one's really listening to the arguments on either side. The winning argument in most cases isn't "torture is wrong" or "torture is necessary." The winning argument is "Ho-hum, what's on TV tonight?"

So I say with great confidence that the compelling argument against using torture is that it produces bad intelligence and ultimately re-directs vital security resources away to the resulting wild goose chases.

Apparently "we can't stand up for what's right while doing what's wrong" doesn't fly, since doing evil things is no longer against the American character. Dieticians tell us we are what we eat. Apparently the equivalent principle in politics is that you turn into who you vote for.

I understand your point about the general apathy over this issue, but an argument over effectiveness has several weaknesses. One is that the administration has already made (specious no doubt) claims of having obtained effective information. Another is the classic ticking bomb fallacy, wherein diversion of resources, bad information, and other objections are rendered null and void because an imagined threat is so horrible (billions of kittens and blue eyed babies will die if we do not pry fingernails from brown skinned hands) that all available measures must be taken.

Until people figure out that if it is ok to torture 'them' it quickly becomes ok to torture 'us', the apathy over this issue will remain in place. I suspect that will not happen until 'we' start getting tortured, which in the general pattern of things ends up being a bit too late to do anything about it.

But the Colbert joke about "the market has spoken" does have some validity to it. The people have heard the morality case. For the time being, they're rejecting it. It says something about this country that we've rejected an argument based on universal moral principles and the need to retain our humanity.

I use the term "we" advisedly, however. I haven't rejected it and you haven't rejected it. But you and I are the minority.

tell the torturer what he/she wants to hear so that the information, which is not necessarily accurate, can be used for propaganda purposes. Yes, torture is evil!!!

You are 100% about it's ineffective. But the portrayal - complete with shots of evil bad guys that we KNOW are guilty, then the vicarious smug porn feeling of breaking the terrorist is what sells on tee-vee.

The common setup is: you have a captive. you know he knows the secret of where the bomb/ whatever that will kill innocent people (usually puppies and children). So do you torture to get the (guaranteed correct - right?) information to save everyone? No? Gee you hate America.

The real situation is not so simple: You have some captives. You have no idea if they know anything useful. You have no idea of what they tell you is correct or misleading. Who do you torture? Extend this - you round up men,women, children. You **think** one of them knows something. Do you torture some? All? Is this a policy? Do you set up torture schools now? Performance reviews for torturers, unions, what? Its a slide to the sick side of the darkness.

Hint: rhymes with "Nero"

edited for link: http://www.barackobama.com/2007/10/04/obama_torture_and_secrecy_betr.php

and that's the argument I'll stick with. It's wrong to torture. It dehumanizes us when we do it. We become what we profess to hate.

I don't like your argument. I'll stick with mine.

The whole point of this administration is that this country doesn't want to be moral anymore. It wants to say it's moral and then act contrary to that assertion.

and the "ticking clock" argument (amongst others) for torture can only be negated by this fact.

TORTURE DOESN'T WORK to get the truth. It provides garbage intelligence...and if the intelligence (gleaned from torture) is garbage that means it's making America less safe. It's a simple argument that even the freeps can't counteract...

Well, if it is so ineffective, then why does everybody use it?

But torture is used not to obtain the truth or information. Torturers don't want the truth. They want to terrorize. Torture produces a terrorized population. When religious zealots use it, it isn't to catch witches or heretics, it is to terrorize those people who dared not support the religion or to get uppity people to shut up.

When the US gubermint used it on Iraqis it was to keep them quiet and submissive so US corporations could continue to pillage Iraq. The bushes use it to keep us quiet too. Do you really want to fight a gubermint that will torture you?

The problem with torturing your captive opponents is it guarantees they will never, ever surrender. They may go underground, they may be silent, for awhile, but they will continue to plot and fight against you. It also guarantees that when your opponent captures your people, they will torture them. Except if your country supports the Geneva convention and you are NOT the US.

I've heard it said that torture is supposed to be an open secret. That is--there's the pretense of secrecy, but the real purpose is for word to leak out and terrify third parties into not taking the enemy's side.

Yet at that it seems to be a spectacular failure too. Lots of people who went into Gitmo under false accusation eventually came out determined to do harm to the country whose people tortured them.

Just look them straight in the eye and say, "So, your behavior model for the War on Terror is a hippie love child named Keifer?"

and against the law. There is nothing good about it!

But I agree that it's a sad commentary on today's political climate that it is seen that way.

People: when you are trying to compel someone, it does not matter what you think. Like it or not, it only matters what you can make them believe. Every minute you whine and complain about how they "should" think like you is another minute that they go on thinking whatever they want.

another effective argument is that when we engage in torture we lose all moral high ground and we will no longer be able to protest when our own forces are tortured and murdered. but it doesn't matter what the argument is to the neocons. just the other day on the radio i heard some hack saying that he couldn't believe the fuss being made over such a "benign" thing as waterboarding when the terrorists were lurking around the corner trying to kill us by the millions. i'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. it was in NC and i was just flipping channels; don't know who the asshole was. it still amazes me that people get air time and are awarded any credibility when they spout shit like that. obviously the fear card is still at the top of the deck.

if the argument is about effectiveness, then a cost-benefit analysis suggests that if you try it on 100 people and it works only once and saves 1000 lives, then perhaps it's worth trying.

this is evil and i can't abide it.

just voted to expand $$$ for that crap.

It does not matter whether something works. This congress, both D and R, don't want to hear about it.
What matters is the PERCEPTION that Congress is addressing an issue, not if they further a working policy or find a solution.
Torture, waterboarding etc, make a 30% of americans think that we are doing something active against terra. And they are therefore willing to turn a blind eye to the practices, or worse, willing to justify it.

mislead honest investigators, it undermines the entire legal process.

The real purpose of torture is always authoritarian: it seeks to impose control by the threat of pain and violence. The claim that torture is merely an "investigative technique" is merely an attempt to mask the naked threat: in practice, torture is an instrument of state terror, and it is always applied by sadists and ideologues.

The ultimate effect of state terror is to create unflinching resistance. If I am in danger of being tortured in order to "encourage" me to confess to crimes I did not commit, I already have nothing to lose: I may as well resist the state terror directly, since I am in danger of being tortured whether I resist or not.