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Torture is never legal and didn’t lead America to bin Laden : Comments
By Marjorie Cohn, published 16/5/2011The assassination of Osama bin Laden has rekindled the discourse about the efficacy and legality of torture.
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We take your point. However, like cutting off of hands and beheading, blinding with acid is retribution and cannot be reversed.
With torture - the argument would be - the torturee determines when it will cease ... when information is given up.
Is torture effective? This is moot.
The following two articles may be of interest.
Waterboarding is part of training American military personnel endure.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2103/is_1_38/ai_n30977308/
Hastings Center confront the issue of doctors being in attendance during torture by waterboarding.
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/News/Detail.aspx?id=5368
Would one agree to a suspect being tortured if this could provide information about a pending terrorist attack? Does the pain (temporary) inflicted on the suspect outweigh the pain - and ultimate death - inflicted on innocent victims? Victims who are others' loved ones.
To all civilised minds, torture is abhorrent. But do the rights of an individual, who puts themself in this situation (and can cry 'halt') outweigh the collective rights of others?
Perhaps the solution would be to find a different method for extracting information than the crude method of torture. But ... this may be worse ...