Originally Posted by Botnst

As for torture, I pretty much agree with Allen Dershowitz on that score. It should never be legal and there are going to be times when you turn your eyes from necessity. His argument goes like this: You have a man in your custody who knows the code to shut-off a nuke. He's more than willing to sacrifice his life and the life of any human being to see his plan succeed.

And folks, torture DOES work. The Romans proved it, the Soviets proved it and the Gestapo deomnstrated it effectively by torturing SAS and OSS operatives all over Europe during WWII. This is why the spy cells were so heavily insulated from knowledge of each other. On PBS several years ago they aired an interview of a retired French officer who was in charge of torturing suspects in French North Africa. He said that he could extract truthful information from anybody, given time.

So back to Dershowitz. His argument is that though society must never condone routine torture, it must be willing and able to accept it as a last resort. He said what we need is to have the chain of command sign-off on torture on an individual basis so that everybody in the chain is morally and legally culpable. His argument is that if the reason for torture is so dire as to require that everybody in the chain agree to it, that the public would probably accept the necessity of it. To me, that goes to Doestoyevsky's argument about those who will and do vs those who will and cannot do. The former become the establishment, the latter go to prison.

Let me put the Bot's personal spin on it. Say you have the kidnapper of your child in your custody....

Bot