The problem here is that there is no way that the people concerned could reliably identify the terrorist all the time.

Only those who would go down that road without much prodding.

The rest of us prefer to cling to some sort of ethical criteria.

As much as I agree with you on this, if push comes to shove are you sure you would never torture somebody?

Although I am against torture, I don't how I would react in certain circumstances especially if it involved family members.

I tend to agree with Johnny,when push comes to shove where do you set your "sort of ethical criteria" ?

Where a situation arises where use of unethical methods against one person is believed likely to save hundreds or thousands of lives where do you stand ?

Personally I'd settle for the greater good every time.

The holier than thou attitude of do-gooders is fine in principle, but they don't have to accept any responsibility for the possible consequences.

Makes her original statement even more surprising.

There's an important distinction here. Would I do it for pleasure? No. Would I do it for King and country? No.

Would I do it for money? That's a toughie.

Would I do it for revenge? Now that's a more valid reason. If you hate someone enough, I could understand you making their remaining time on the planet as unpleasant as possible.

What actually stuns me is the crude nature of torture, which does imply that part of it is done thru hate, and any info is a byproduct. It helps to keep the populace in line, as well.

If you really want the information, then the intelligent person knows that there are ways to get information without laying a finger on people.

I am not in favour of torture, but if the 9-11 could have been avoided by that method, I would call it a result and say the end justified the means.
Weighing up 1000s of lives lost, or a potention mass killer or killers being tortured to get the info before it happened.

You would have to be in that situation....thankfully it is very unlikely.

It is very easy to condem certain methods of gettin information, but sometimes things are too important to hope that the perps give up the information volunteeriamente.

IF IF IF IF IF IF IF.

Now, were you able to say with 100% clarity that only the guilty would be tortured, then this justification might just be tolerable.

However, I'm willing to bet that governments would pretty soon stretch the definition of what a terrorist was. After all, the state is threatened by terrorism, right? So, whatever threatens the state must be on a par with that. Free speach threatens the state, so.......

Please, please, please. Have a little respect for your fellow posters and don't get personal. One can debate the issue without getting personal.

Thanks

I think that if a poster demonstrates a glaring lack of humanity towards anyone outside of their particular little group, then that merits mentioning.

Yes, but one should be able to disagree without getting personal

Agreed, but equally accusations of mysogyny thrown about in an attempt to mask stupidity don't do anything for the process of debate, now do they?

Perhaps if you had been quite as quick to delete those comments I might be less critical. Just an observation, eh?

Don't dig yourself an even bigger hole. Thanks

I have a problem with people who wholeheartedly agree with torture for ‘the greater good’, and exactly the same problem with people who say ‘never’. When I see images of Bush and Blair closing their eyes to pray to their God, while bombing people with a different God, I want to scream; and I want to scream just as loud when I hear people complaining about water boarding.

Both acts are evil and neither would survive in a civilised, black and white society, the utopia for dreamers.

The righteous would want to prosecute the policeman for forcing a suspects head down the toilet and flushing it, while the parents of the kidnapped child recovered alive by the tortured man’s confession would wish to shake his hand for saving their child.

Where does an individual freedom lover stand in such a case? Personally, I would get my hands wet, not just for my child, but anybody’s.

The great argument against any such torture is that innocent people may be involved and tortured. They always have been and always will be; God hasn’t yet got round to stamping ‘criminal’ on their foreheads at birth to ensure against mistakes.

One such innocent was interviewed on the programme last night and described how she went to feel her legs after the tube explosion, and put her hand into an empty space. You have to balance that against the man being water boarded, somehow, or that horrible policeman holding the kidnapper’s head down the toilet.

If If if,

everything that happens depens on an if, can anyone guarentee that only the guilty would be sent to jail for years. You cant. life is not like that,.

All crime and investigation is based on IF.

There ar no guarentees in life and nobody can guarentee 100 precent.

With terrorism, the goal pasts have changed, crimes in the past were usually committed for gain, jealousy, revenge, and other things are were usually aimed at certain people.

Now with terrorists wanting to main and injure the biggest number possible of innocents, with no other motive to do so, but the fact that they dont like what the government is doing in a far away country.

I basically disagree with torture, but balancing it against hundreds of victims, it may have to be done, if those casualties could be avoided.

100 percent certain, impossible, but is anyone given those odds in everyday life??