I take it back - the Jack Bauer scenario is real - and it is happening

[hedgehog]

This is what I postulate: American soldiers capture a suspected insurgent and decide that he knows the location of a car bomb or plans of a suicide bomber. The clock is ticking. Do we allow the soldiers to torture the suspect legally? Do we give a wink and a nod and pretend nothing happened as long as a bomb is found?

Before you answer, consider these questions as well:

How do you know the suspect is an insurgent?
Can you trust the interpreter?
Can you trust the informant who led you to the insurgent?
What if your informant is wrong?
What if there is no bomb?
What if next time, the insurgent just knows the location of bomb making materials?
What if next time, the insurgent just knows where a sniper rifle is hidden?

What do you do with the soldiers who committed torture when they come home?

[Hydra]

1. You're forgetting 1 point

Do they care if the prisoner knows nothing?

[hedgehog]

5. After a while, I think the torturers stop caring whatever the context.

The torture becomes a tool for scaring others into submission. Lynchings were as much about terrorizing the survivors as they were about punishing the victim.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Lets say the insurgents capture a U.S. troop...

and they have reason to believe that the troop knows where the next U.S. attack is going to be.

The clock is ticking.

Do we give them a wink and a nod to torture the U.S. troop?

[damntexdem]

3. You don't support torture.

The clock never seems to tick on those who torture because the Bushistas stonewall those with the right to investigate, who then do nothing about the stonewalling. But that is still insufficient justification for torturing even the Bushistas.

What to do with soldiers who committed torture when they come home? How about: grant them immunity from prosecution in return for their testimony against those who ORDERED them to commit torture?

[Ian David]

4. If it is worth torturing someone, then it is worth going to jail for doing the torture.

The only time one should be "allowed" to torture someone is when the torturer will immediately turn themselves in to authorities and plead guilty, regardless of the outcome of the interrogation.

It's like speeding on your way to the hospital.

If it's worth speeding, then it should also be worth paying the speeding ticket.

If you torture someone, you should be prepared to go to jail.

If it's not worth going to jail, then it's not worth torturing someone.

[hedgehog]

7. Except in the US, the torturers rarely go to jail.

It's only been in recent times that polics officers have been arrested for torture, and they always have defenders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima

[Ian David]

9. THAT needs to changed. n/t

[TahitiNut]

8. Yep. That's the ethical response.

A person who looks to have the act of torture 'blessed' so they can do it without risk is a coward and sociopath, imho.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/423

[TahitiNut]

6. Insane. My answer to the Russert 'hypothetical' is ...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/423

[Fovea]

10. What do you do with the soldiers who committed torture when they come home?

The hundred years war solution was to send them to another war where they would kill each other off.

Perhaps we can send them to Spain to fight for Pedro the Cruel, or Juan the Good.

[mmonk]

11. Torture is intimidation of populations, not information gathering.

You neighbor could be tortured into a confession.

[hedgehog]

12. You can be tortured in to a confession, or as George Orwell taught us,

you could be tortured into offering the love of your life in your place.