re: #300 Coracle

Fair enough. I object on both grounds. Morally, use of torture lowers us toward them. It makes an enemy fight harder for fear of it, recruit better because it can be used as another demonstration of our “evil”, and make it more likely our own people will encounter it should they ever fall into enemy hands.

As for efficacy, the way I read the IG report was that it may have been effective in some instances, but not uniquely or exclusively so. If you can get the information and still retain the high ground that is better.

Lastly, even if I grant that waterboarding is indeed more effective, and more timely, which I do not, it is still torture, and still something we should not condone. If an individual interrogator is dead certain there’s information hidden there, and he must extract it right now at any cost, he does what he believes and faces the music after. He may be vindicated by the saving of lives, but he - and any superiors who sanctioned him had better take personal responsibility for those actions.

I understand this may not be a popular opinion here. But it’s where I stand. Now I’m off. HAve a good weekend, all.

To summarize, then:

1) Using a bit of controlled force, where there is no danger of death or permanent damage to the subject, in order to obtain information that can preclude the use of lethal force applied to unarmed civilians makes us the moral equivalent of those who would use the lethal force against the civilians in question;

2) Waterboarding may or may not have worked. The cases in which it is reported to have worked do not demonstrate that other techniques might not have produced similar results. While we all wait for the time machine to allow us to go back in time to test the alternatives, we are to remain opposed to what worked;

3) If it’s what it takes, it what it takes, but the folks doing it are the ones with their necks out. Succeed or fail, they are subject to punishment for taking the actions necessary at the time.

Stances differ on these matters, of course.