For the record Col, I don't think you are 'heartless', quite the opposite in fact, which, while understandable, is at least as dangerous.

I think you are far too quick to abrogate civil liberties for the sake of your family's security.
I think you are far too quick to take responsibility for what the 'rough men' decide to do in your name.
I think you are far too quick to speak of what you think are 'realities' without actually pausing to stop and think about what these 'realities' actually are.

Because, as Fractelle has already shown, the 'ticking bomb' scenario or the gathering of useful information from suspects on new attacks using torture, is exceedingly rare, if it exists at all. That's the reality.
But the unnecessary torture of innocent people is far too common.

All these things do not come from heartlessness, they come from someone who is so passionate about the ones they love, they would do anything in their name. While that's understandable, I don't think that's a good trait to extend to society in general.
We must watch the watchers for the sake of our own safety, and seriously that's not just a theory, that's a reality.

Dear Fractelle,

Thank you so much for the information.

Once again you've given us all something
worthwhile to think about. And confirmed
what my gut instinct told me all along.

I can understand why some might think torture might be considered in certain situations but for all the reasons stated already it is not the right approach both logistically and ethically.

Torture has to be considered from a societal perspective not just from the perspective of pain inflicted on an individual. In general terms torture is used primarily by oppressive governments where innocent people live in fear of being persecuted for some imagined or perceived transgreesion.

Raimond Gaita, referred to in the following link, dismisses the idea that the ends can justify the means, noting that ‘the good we achieve by unjust means is polluted by those means’.

http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2005/08/smith.html

Three very salient points made in the article include:
Torture does not work.
Torture cannot be controlled.
Torture is unethical.

Bugsy; “Do you personally support the UN Convention Against Torture?”

No. I have a problem with this:

‘No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.’

“Do you think Australia…[or]… India should support the Convention?”

Not as it is written.

“Should there even be a convention?”

YES. Absolutely. We need one that tightly defines the circumstances of when strong measures are warranted for the extraction of vital information…and not one that says ridiculous things as per the above extract. A public emergency SHOULD be the justification for strong methods of information extraction, in cases like the scenario outlined in my last post.

“If an officer tortured a person using the reason ‘I had reason to believe that this person was a terrorist and had information on an imminent attack’, and it turned out that this person did not have any information- should the officer be prosecuted?”

Not if the authorities can ascertain genuinely good intentions, in line with tightly defined criteria.

The police and army are faced with this sort of dilemma all the time. The more tightly we can define the appropriate measures in the full gamut of circumstances, the better off we will be.

THIS is what the UN convention should do, rather than saying a blanket ‘no’ to torture.

“This is a war FOR hearts and minds as much as against them”

It should be much more a case of winning the hearts and minds of those who would do us evil than to fight against their hatred… for probably a very long time to come.

Fractelle’s quoted example of a ‘show city’ seems like the sort of thing that should be done to this end. But we also have to remain strong in our resolve to deal decisively with those who inflict death and misery upon us.

The use of very strong methods of information extraction and the goal of winning the hearts and minds of our enemies are not mutually exclusive.

Leaving aside for the moment the -morality of torture- and looking only at its effectiveness:

When you get down to basics torture is a subset of coercion. And there are various grades of coercion.Even the most liberal of authorities employ it; a slap on the hand for toddlers; detection for school children ; sentence loadings for ‘hate crimes’ .And society by and large seems to have judged that it is effective enough .

But when it is labeled -torture- we are asked to believe that –it absolutely cannot work– .If human nature/psychology is reasonable consistent, and if it works in the lesser cases it ought to work in the grosser cases.

Yes, I know we have press releases from various police and military spokespersons who say it does not work.But I suspect such statements are in a good part due to, coercion : I wonder how many military & police personnel - mindful of their career prospects- could come out and say yes torture works we’ve tried it.

The fact that torture keeps cropping up in various conflicts, at various times, is less a case of an innate human desire for vengeance than indication that it is likely to work when applied to some people, at least some of the time

The original post refers only to India. From PolyCarp

"Would it surprise anyone if the "Indian government" applied 'persuasion' of an extreme nature to this individual to ferret out every bit of information he can supply?"

I don't support extreme torture, but I do support proven persuasive methods.

India & other 3rd world countries (& America) are not signaturies to the UN Convention. Whether we do or don't support torture is immaterial in this case. These countries cultures are still rooted in the Dark Ages. It's the way THEY do things. It's not the way we do things in Australia. We all recognise this.

Now I know the sweetie brigade has had no experience in "Persuasive methods" as pointed out by Foxy, but I do take it that we all can think. There seems to be a lot of it done as to why torture shouldn't be applied. Therefore you should be able to come up with some methods of illiciting information from a terrorist in some form.

OK for get the Dot Point. I'd be happy with some short explanations on extracting information.

Bugsy. "Congratulations, you would just be a prime candidate for war crimes, or if a state of war is not declared, murder."

I'd be living in India not Australia. Big difference. The terrorist would have had a fair trial & be condemed to death. Legaly. Method of excecution commiserant with the country in which the crime was commited.

"which 'terrorist' would you be interrogating, the one who just carried out the attack,"

WE are talking about the terrorist who was captured. The one that committed the attack.

"or the one that hadn't done anything yet?"

This is NOT in the equasion as given by the original question. Red herring.