re: #417 SixDegrees

Torture wouldn’t be a problem if it produced reliable results. The problem is, it doesn’t always do that. Sometimes it hardens the enemy’s will, and you will never get anything no matter what you do; other times, the enemy will start telling you what you want to hear, either out of exhaustion or deception.

And sometimes, you wind up torturing the innocent, who truly have nothing to say. Although they, too, will often wind up saying what they think their tormentors want to hear.

If you can devise a technique that produces absolutely reliable information, and that elicits everything the captive knows, I’m all for it. Until then, the downside - especially that of inflicting anguish on the innocent - makes it far too morally expensive. The ends don’t justify the means.

sodium pentathol?(sp)

when you are a soldier and someone is shooting bullets at you, they are not “innocent civilians”