Alvin, give us a number please. Are you like cjm in the gory gory thread who supports the killing of the doctor because that represents saving lives? The ‘it’s simply math’ argument. That is the argument you are propounding – it’s simply math.

Wretchard,

There certainly is a problem with what to do with the prisoners now, to that I’ll agree but I’m having trouble trying to see the sense in your argument which is in support of the enhanced interrogation techniques, is it not? You are basically saying that it is better for the US to use these techniques because 1.) they will yield more reliable information then getting the info second hand and 2.) they’d do it more humanely. Have I got it right?

What to do with the current crop of prisoners caught in limbo is really a different issue then the one of interrogation techniques. With respect to this issue due process is important. Habeas corpus and all that. We’ve got a bunch of people trapped in limbo. They’ve been scooped up from all manner of places and brought to US jurisdiction and confined. No trial, nothing. This is absurd and they should be given due process or released. The Bush administration has left behind a stinking pile of s… here because their interrogation techniques and other un-lawful activity has poisoned any reasonable prosecution of these folk. Most of the evidence is now unusable in any carnation of a court of law. This however does not justify the continuing use of ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ aka torture. It does pose a problem of what you do with these folks. Locking them away untried in Guantanamo is not a suitable solution.

The use of EIT, or torture is a different issue. The standard argument for its use here at Belmont is the ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario which I’ve argued is tautological. But if we accept the argument then the next logical position to take is to embrace the use of these techniques as a standard investigative procedures. The supreme court justice Scalia has argued in a BBC interview that they could be used domestically – just don’t convict the person first. Twisted logic, but, it reflects his thinking. Anyway, if you argue that Torture has value (hurt 1 to save many) then that argument holds domestically as well. I think many recoil at the thought of torture being used domestically because of they instinctive realize it would be wrong. Imagine, the US government routinely waterboarding, depriving folk of sleep for long periods of times placing US CITIZENS in stress positions and keeping them cold for long periods to glean information that would ‘better society’ and they immediately know how wrong that is. But somehow, when the person getting this done to them is a ‘foreigner’ labeled by some government functionary as a ‘terrorist’, well, then, its fine. It is not.

… by the way, the US gov. has prosecuted Japanese individuals for waterboarding Americans so it is a tough slog to argue that Americans waterboarding others is not torture.