damn those secular progressives! if only the religious regressives were in control. oh, what paradise on earth we would have!

Yes, Cowboy Joe. The secular progressives wouldn't be so quick to condemn torture if they had God in their hearts now, would they?

<<Additionally, I fail to see how the ethics of the interrogator is so easily deemed to be objectionable.>>

I agree - in the short-term. Initially, I believe the interrogators would be the biggest victims - providing the torture victim is actually withholding life saving information. But this statement ignores the fact that we could be opening doors that we may not be able to close.

<<I will trust those who have the responsibility to ensure our safety to decide.>>

...said the Nazi soldier to the “unpatriotic” German.

No, I'm not suggesting that you're a Nazi, Mr Joe. But as touching as your trust is, I thought that the religious regressives (as Bushbasher has so eloquently put it) had the good sense not to put too much faith in man - being the fallible creature that he is. Or would they be guided by God as Bush is?

<<I wouldn't want the Rhian's of the world guarding anything of value, after all they may be required to actually do something instead of theorizing.>>

If it hadn't been for the “theorizing” of those secular progressives, we'd still be burning people as heretics and torturing them with sadistic devices, demanding that they accept God and recant. Heck, the universe would still revolve around a flat Earth.

<<How does France and Londonistan fit into your vision of the future?>>

“Londonistan”, as bad as it would be, wouldn't be all that much worse than what we'd potentially create by our own direct means if we were so quick to openly condone torture.

How about, as Sancho has suggested, we try a bit more “rigorous police work and evidence-gathering” before we officially adopt and accept torture.

Sitting up and taking notice of the growing signs of the 9/11 attacks would have been a good start, rather than using 200 odd FBI agents to investigate the sexual indiscretions of a President.

You will never be invited to join ASIO Mirko.If the torture of a few, will save hundreds of lives who are honest faithful productive members of our society,then so be it.The individual is never greater than the whole,since the power of the individual always comes from the civilisation generated by that society.

Moral equivocation and handringing means nothing in the face of oblivion.It is do,or die.

"...first, it’s claimed that torture doesn’t elicit reliable information. This is factually wrong. There are countless counter-examples. Israeli authorities claim to have foiled 90 terrorist attacks by using coercive interrogation."

Well they would have to say that, wouldn't they. Even if it wasn't true.

I don't know where the author got that information but it's also a fact that non-coercive FBI techniques have historically proven to be consistently more reliable than the alternative CIA torture methods.

I don't know the success rate for the methods used in other "enlightened" regimes in the Middle East or South America.

This is similar thinking to pre-emptive strikes and execution without trial.

At what point do we stop fighting the "bad guys" and become the "bad guys" ourselves?

I would have doubts about living in - and supporting - a society that sanctioned torture as a political, military or social tool.

Arjay,

<<If the torture of a few, will save hundreds of lives who are honest faithful productive members of our society,then so be it.>>

Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you. But since 9/11 we have seen the American government and the Australian and British governments (to a much lesser extent) take advantage of a tragic situation for their own personal gain by stripping citizens of their basic freedoms in order to “protect” us.

This abuse of power demonstrates how far they're willing to go to curtail those "pesky" civil liberites. I've heard Americans say many times (in regards to their bill of rights and basic civil liberties) that American's can't afford another 9/11.

Considering how much the Western world has already begun to slide down the “slippery slope” that Mirko wants to ignore, imagine where we'd be with a few more 9/11's – which will still never be entirely avoidable no matter how much “protection” we were provided with.

<<The individual is never greater than the whole,since the power of the individual always comes from the civilisation generated by that society.>>

This line could be used to argue an anti-torture point-of-view as well, simply by interpreting it as: “The individual's right to safety is never greater than the state of the society as a whole, since the power of the individual always comes from the civilisation generated by that society”.

Again, like I said in my last post, what kind of society would we be potentially creating for ourselves if we were so quickly willing to condone torture?

Despite what it may seem, I'm not saying that I wouldn't be relieved if my own life had been saved by torture techniques. But to so quickly advocate torture is just plain irresponsible, and reeks of nothing but anger and a desire to inflict pain those whom we despise.

Arjay (and Cowboy Joe for that matter), did you even read the points that others have already made on this thread? If so, then I find it hard to believe that you would have made such simplistic statements.

You can see where this is all leading....

Let's cut to the chase and construct an altar. Then cut the living hearts out of all those who pose a threat to the greater good, as defined by the High Priests of Western Capitalism.

The pressures of overpopulation and diminishing resources are slowly having their way over us just as surely as they did over the Aztecs in their day. What seems to us to be utter barbarism had grown from the same pragmatism. It made perfectly good sense to their elite, who upheld the maintenance of an outmoded belief system over the very souls that it was originally meant to serve.

Thus the tribe loses it's head and it's heart....

Huitzilopochtli, BA LLB(Hons) LLM PhD (Monash and Tenochtitlán, South America)