how do we get information out of people unwilling to talk

We don't.

Next question? I mean it's really that simple. Since 1776 we have stood for something; we have never thrown that away and we won't throw it away now. Many have tried to scare us into abandoning our American principles or allowing our leaders to do the same. Decades later we all smugly reflect on how the "existential threat" turned out not to be so existential after all. We locked up Japanese-Americans because we were scared. Nixon tried to scare us into letting him spy on his political enemies ("national security.") Every generation of Americans faces another "existential" threat; and there will always be people like you: weak, obedient, trusting all authority figures ("They [the Democrats in the Senate] must know something you don't"), frightened, and all to willing to hand over your American freedoms and rights to a father figure who you believe will protect you from the evil hordes. And people like us, true patriots who believe in the Constitution, will prevail over people like you, whose misbegotten sense of expediency ("how do we get information out of people unwilling to talk") reveals just how weak and fragile your basic morality and American values really are.

"Torture, on the other hand, only and always will serve to produce more enemies."

I doubt there has ever been any administration in our history who is more talented at making enemies. In seven short years, almost the entire world sees us as the enemy and 70-80% of America feels like the enemy. It only makes sense that they would love torture.

Am I to read Schumer's statement about the need to depoliticize the Justice Dept trumping the need to outlaw and prosecute torture as follows - we need an Attorney General who will not stand for attempts to overthrow the results of the 2008 elections?

is Hollywood stuff that has never happen in real life. It's an excuse to indulge their repressed sexual fantasies that are served by torture and anonymous gay bathroom sex. A US serviceman captured now by jihadists could probably expect having his body chopped off piece by piece before he's beheaded because of the torture orgy this insane criminal regime has indulged in. Former Israeli Mossad and Shabak (internal security) who have dealt with terrorism for many years have already stated numerous times that torture is unproductive and corrupting. This entire regime deserves to be lined up in front of a wall and shot for war crimes.

misses IT with get-out-of-humanity-free card

wipes ass with moral authority

is amoral

is they

Rather than an invocation of the Peter Principle as an explanation of what you see, perhaps you should consider the even more pernicious Iron Law of Institutions as that which accounts for these phenomena, as formulated by Jonathan Schwartz at his fabulous blog, tinyrevolution:

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001705.html

I once was blind, but now I see. Those injected into positions of responsibility through the Peter Principle only labor in the vineyards of the Iron Law.

I wasn't postulating an actual hypothesis, just being cynical. I'm not really a fan of these pat little unifying theories for everything.

"Most people understand that torture works. While it's commendable to be against any kind of human suffering, as a philosophy it's dependent on being willing to endure the consequence of pacifism. Which is, having one's fate left to others."

Most people believe torture works in television shows and james Bond movies, most do not believe or do not know if it works in real life. The people that "know" are sadists.

And while it's commendable to be against human suffering, apparently it is not practical, so for the sake of pragmatism, let's create as much human suffering as we can. Giddy up and have a fukking rotten miserable day. Thank you very much.

Wonderful sociopathic logic.

But how does Shooters little mind deal with Ghandi who directed the fate of a nation, was a pacifist and did not torture . Ahhh I see, shooter concludes Ghandi freed India by torturing their oppressors with pacifism. And Jesus the useless pacifist he... oh never mind.

The countless ways of sheer stupidity and sociopathic tendency on parade with peacock feathers up.

Shooter - how do we get information out of people unwilling to talk.
JO - We don't.
Next question? I mean it's really that simple. Since 1776 we have stood for something; we have never thrown that away and we won't throw it away now.

Oh brother. Cue the violins.
We are now more careful of human life than at any time in history.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html

In 1770's London (and presumably the colonies) the punishment for a felony such as stealing a hankerchief was hanging. There was also whipping, the pillory (stress positioning), branding, forced labor or service in the military, exile to a penal colony, and the occasional burning at the stake. And that was for the citizens! http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/crime/punishment.html#transportation

Many have tried to scare us into abandoning our American principles or allowing our leaders to do the same. Decades later we all smugly reflect on how the "existential threat" turned out not to be so existential after all.

Indeed and the same thing will happen after the current troubles have been resolved one way or the other. A Democrat will likely be elected, conflict will be swept under the rug, and all will be well in the world as long as we, the US, are good and do what we are told.

Jim White posed what is in my mind the central point:

Coercion may give you an answer, but in the time that it takes to determine the validity of the answer given, independent intelligence work will always give a more reliable answer.

(And may the Gods deliver unto us a more elegant way of quoting people than the old <blockquote>)

I've been agonizing, literally for years, over the validity of what's often posed as the Ticking Timebomb Scenario (or more insidiously, the Your Mom or Girlfriend Is About To Be Raped/Killed/Brutalised scenario). The moral and ethical issue is and always has been clear to me. What some -- including our own She/he-Who-Must-Not-Be Named ;-) -- are treating as a fundamental moral question of our age is really of grade-school simplicity: we do not torture because of who we are, not who they are. What has troubled me more is the mere possibility of such a horrendous choice: violate your humanity now to save many lives later. Not with the swift, awful necessity of the police sniper who takes down a gunman before he slaughters a roomful of schoolchildren, but the banality of a GS-5 pouring water over a gagged prisoner over and over and over again.

As it turns out, the scenario is, as is well known by pretty much all sentient beings, ridiculously unlikely, and the efficacy of torture even in that cartoonish scenario well disproven. Darius Rejali wrote a very interesting series on torture here at Salon:

http://search.salon.com/salonsearch.php?search=Darius+Rejali&breadth=salon

and there are numerous other reviews showing the same, from sources as diverse as bleeding hearts like the aforementioned to blood-and-guts milbloggers like those on StrategyPage:

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles2002/20020429.asp

As Jordan so eloquently pointed out, we simply cannot command the compliance of anyone with sufficient application of violence, no matter how steely our will or noble our cause. The mind-reading technologies Orwell envisioned have not come to pass. In the end, the desire to bend others to one's will speaks volumes about those who so ardently desire such control. The word irony is utterly insufficient to describe the fact that so many of them profess the worship of Jesus, who was tortured to death.