If someone was sticking pins under my nails I would surely own up to anything. After 9/11 many people in the USA were rounded up and taken away for interrogation, based often on them being reported for 'acting suspiciously'. Some were reported by workmates or neighbours purely because they looked a bit shifty. Many were away from families for 12 mths with no legal recourse, tortured and beaten. There were innocent.
The prisioners in Iraq tortured by the US army were pulled off the streets with no proof of being involved in terrorism,. Is this what people want? That hysteria will point fingers and many innocents, but torturing them is ok as they 'might' be a bad guy. This is not latte time, this is stepping back from the situation and seeing that torture will not produce anything other than a forced confession.
Rather than scoffing at those who do not agree with torture, look at your own mindset and see the hysteria and rhetoric. I certainly would not like to see people being pulled off the streets, based on some idiot dobbing me in as a terrorist purely for their own reasons, and without sufficient legal reason. Too late if the torture killed me before my innocence was discovered.

Where are all the torture critics now?

I'm still here protesting everytime I see Alexander Downer on TV. If this isn't torture I don't know what is.

I'll continue to protest and oppose the use of torture whilst ever I have recollections of Auszwich,Abu Ghraib;Guantanamo;Nuremberg; Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush talking of vetoing American Congress on the use of torture.
I am mindful of the fact that the US had knowledge of a possible terror attack well before the passenger planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon but they did not respond to prevent the tragedies. Why then would they need torture when they had the 'intelligence' in their possession ?
They are using torture in Iraq now and in secret prisons around the world...arresting innocent people and 'interrogating' them to exact information about so called 'insurgents' activities...keeping them away from the Red Cross....It is not succeeding in stopping the war.
Here are two relative quotes that clearly indicate we are not learning from the past.

Our men . . . have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of 10 up.... Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to "make them talk," and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an
hour later. . . stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.": Philadelphia Ledger newspaper in 1901, from its Manila [Philippines] correspondent during the US war with Spain for the control of the Philippines

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience.therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." - Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

As regards Iraqi insurgents, there seems more and more proof they come mostly from Saddam's more than three hundred thousand troops which though poorly equipped militarily, apparently had the nounce not to surrender but to carry on the battle as underground forces ready to give their lives as suicide bombers.

However, it is so interesting that the Sunnis being formerly more Western orientated than the Shias back in the 1980s, could suddenly turnabout and surrender, especially the officer class, if offered positions in the new Iraqi military.

However, the very fact that Condoleeza Rice will finish up with a sort of dog's breakfast as regards security forces, could mean a good excuse for the US military to stay on in force, using the old colonial ruse to hang about like the Brits in India and play divide and rule keeping natural enemies apart.

There is also the problem of big Iran next door being too friendly with the Iraqi Shias. And if anyone believes that most of the oil profits will go to the Iraqis, as Condy Rice has probably already promised must surely be having pipe dreams. Far better to pump Dick Cheney, or Exxon Corporation, or BP, and never believe that Iraq will be allowed to go back on the Euro as she was with Saddam. As well as with a lot of other things, that a land once again given its freedom should be allowed to make its own choice about.

There are two issues here: is torture ever morally permissible (eg, to save lives, as in scenarios discussed here and elsewhere); and, is torture likely enough to extract useful information to make its use worthwhile?

Others may disagree, but my answer to the first question is "no". The deliberate infliction of severe pain and suffering on a human being is so dehumanising and degrading a process, and so dangerous to those doing the torturing, that I don't believe it can ever be justified. Torture is the stock-in-trade of wholly repugnant regimes - Nazi Germany, the various communist dictatorships, rightwing military regimes around the world, Saddam's Iraq. It is, as one poster notes, primarily a means of intimidation and control. And there is no end to the horror it can generate once unleashed.

The second question is strictly practical. Our latter-day torture advocates speak of it being used only in certain highly critical situations (that's how it would begin, anyway). But, sufficiently tortured, most people will sign anything and admit to anything. You may gain a conviction this way, but intelligence to head off a terrorist strike in a time-critical situation is very unlikely. All the tortured suspect need do - assuming he or she can't hold out till the deadline (there are cases where people have been tortured to death without talking) - is give false information to buy enough time for the presumed strike to occur. Game over.

A little story. Fabian von Schlabrendorff was in the July 1944 plot to kill Hitler. He was arrested and lavishly tortured by the Gestapo, but stopped the torture by making "an entirely harmless form of confession" which incriminated no-one not already caught. Bizarrrely, when put on trial he was acquitted on the grounds that torture had been used against him: the Nazis did not actually legalise torture, as today's advocates would, they just used it. The Gestapo did not release him, though: he was told that in recognition of his acquittal he would be shot, not hanged. In the chaos at the war's end, he actually survived to tell his tale.

Yay back to the middle ages we go!

Hooray political percecution!

First they came for the Muslims, I did not fight, for I was not a Muslim. Then they came for the Communists, I did not fight, for I was not a Communist. When they came for me, there was no one left to fight.