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Sunday Night Sad Song: Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris, 'Red Dirt Girl'

322
wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam1/12/2015 1:34:03 am PST

re: #320 SteveMcGaziBolaGate

I can’t help but notice that you guys can’t quote from the paper to support the points you’re making about Dershowitz.

Excuse me, but I was busy meeting with a student. I have read the paper, since you are so keen on us doing so. I suppose one’s reaction to Dershowitz’ arguments for “torture warrants” depends on one’s acceptance of torture as a legitimate means of obtaining information. Clearly, Dershowitz has no qualms about torture being acceptable, as long as there are clear legal avenues for its use.

Moreover the rights of the suspect would be better protected with a warrant requirement. He would be granted immunity, told that he was now compelled to testify, threatened with imprisonment if he refuses to do so and given the option of providing the requested information. Only if he refused to do what he was legally compelled to do - - provide necessary information which could not incriminate him because of the immunity - - would he be threatened with torture. Knowing that such a threat was authorized by the law, he might well provide the information. If he still refused to, he would be subjected to judicially monitored physical measures designed to cause excruciating pain without leaving any lasting damage. A sterilized needle underneath the nail might be one such approved method. This may sound brutal, but it does not compare in brutality with the prospect of thousands of preventable deaths at the hands of fellow terrorists.

There are many hypotheticals in just this one extract, enough to make the entire argument pretty weak.

1. We have someone in custody who may have information about a terroristic act.
2. He refuses to cooperate.
3. There are no other possible sources of information.
4. We get a “torture warrant.”
5. He still refuses.
6. We stick needles under his fingernails.
7. He sings like a canary.
8. Problem solved!

He refers to Israeli cases in which some useful information was obtained by mild torture techniques. Then the Israeli courts declared such techniques illegal. Yet, in the same paper, using the aforesaid hypotheticals, he says basically that the Israeli Supreme Court was wrong in its decision, because torture sometimes is justified.

I don’t find his argument convincing in the least. I also find his suggestion that torture should be legally condoned abhorrent.