Another thing all you no-torture types always forget is this: If it wasn't for torture, and the persistent, selfless efforts of our troops to detain, imprison and torture a large number of Iraqis who were rounded up at random, would those Iraqis have even given us a war? I really doubt it. Those Middle Easterners are, as we know, incorrigibly lazy, and don't got a whole bunch patriotism for their own country, let alone our's. Look, after the Iraqi State forces melted away under our Shock and Awe, all the rest of those Iraqi idiots were just gonna sit there! So we send our huge Army (and the rest and all those contractors, too) at great expense and risk, to fight on the Iraqis but the bastards wouldn't fight!! That's how they are! Ungrateful to their very bones. And after all, lightly armed civilians with improvised explosives are not much of a match for US Armed Forces, but still!

So naturally, we had to round up, detain and imprison under torturous conditions large numbers of Iraqis, and it took almost a year

The shock of hopping in a bath tub.

Thee plunge into a cold bath waters.

I hope that's not a too bad pubic idea.

You're assuming that a) said person actually possesses critical information; b) that information can be reliably extracted via torture; c) the information "extracted" will happily prevent some earth-shaking event.

Those are precisely my assumptions. If any of them is absent, then there is no excuse or justification for torture and there is nothing to debate. But that begs the question: What to do when all those factors ARE present?

If this is in fact your point, then "b) that information can be reliably extracted via torture", sort of shitcans it before you can further down the alphabet. Torture is the least effective means of extracting information. There are no circumstances where it has proven more effective. Period.

And woebegone - you are now, officially, objectively pro-torture. And you're OK w/ that.

Thinking like yours is part of the reason this country has earned the reputation it has.

And how can you know T3's A, B, & C w/ 100% certainty without already knowing where the TTB is? How can you know the information you get from torture is true unless you already know the truth?

Look, if it would prevent the Holacaust, or any other, I'm willing to be tortured? How about you?

Which do you think would be more effective at preventing the Holacaust- if you tortured someone, or if someone tortured you?

wbgonne is a troll.

Ignore.

What to do when all those factors ARE present?

How would you know? It seems to me that if you had this knowledge then, by definition, there'd be no need for torture. Put another way, your knowledge would have to be so circumscribed ("I know the general location of the bomb-in-waiting, but not its exact location") as to beggar belief. If you knew the general location, that assumes a modicum of intelligence probably garnered from sources. No? And if you had such sources, wouldn't they provide more specific information? And if they were unable to do so, why do you think this one person-of-interest would possess such information? And if they did, why do you think they'd give it up?

Many of those who've been tortured have said, essentially, "I said whatever I could to stop the pain."

There isn't a lot of operational truth there. Just stop the pain. I really am sorry to see you try to defend the indefensible.

that begs the question: What to do when all those factors ARE present?

Again, Good Goddess, for the last time: how can you know ahead of time that "a) said person actually possesses critical information; b) that information can be reliably extracted via torture; c) the information "extracted" will happily prevent some earth-shaking event?"

If you cannot know those things ahead of time - and you cannot, then you are committing a crime. That is all. As you say, "there is no excuse or justification for torture and there is nothing to debate." You lose, you get nothing, good day to you sir.

Enough.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/12/03/matthew-alexander/ (and sig)

Matthew Alexander, former U.S. military interrogator and author of the opinion piece “I’m Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq” published in the Washington Post, discusses how information gleaned from ethical interrogations enabled the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the relatively moderate views of most Iraqi Al-Qaeda members who joined for practical rather than ideological reasons, the moral and operational failure of torture and the enduring legacy of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as a recruiting aid for violent extremists.

Matthew Alexander led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006. He is the author of How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. He is writing under a pseudonym for security reasons.

Good compliment to Mathew Alexander's "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq" OpEd that GG linked in his post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242.html

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

His book is How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/1416573151/antiwarbookstore

Alexander, a pseudonymous air force officer, and writer Bruning (House to House), collaborate to tell the stranger-than-fiction story of the intelligence operation that located and ultimately killed Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. An Air Force investigator turned interrogator, Alexander was trained in the post–Abu Ghraib interrogation techniques that replace fear and control with respect, rapport, hope, cunning and deception. He arrived in Iraq in March 2006, a month after al-Qaeda bombed the Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra in an effort to incite sectarian violence, and Zarqawi became the most wanted man in Iraq and the primary focus of U.S. intelligence efforts. Using the new methods, Alexander interrogated five captured al-Qaeda members and tracked down Zarqawi's personal spiritual adviser, who unwittingly led U.S. Special Forces to Zarqawi's hideout; this vindicated Alexander's methods and eliminated the key terrorist leader.

The people arguing that torture is good, works, is necessary in "special cases", etc. should read the OpEd. All arguments condoning torture in any circumstance are bullshit because:

1) Torture doesn't work.

2) Torture acts as a recruiting aid for extremists.

3) Zarqawi's death vindicated Alexander's brainy and non-brutal methods.

Those are facts. In order to advocate torture, those facts must be rebutted. Maybe one of the torture lovers out there can invalidate those three facts? Emotional appeals and bullshit hypothetical situations don't count. Just the facts please. Either shit or get off the pot.

Matthew Alexander is an example of a real patriot.