One of the arguments I’m hearing more often than most is the 24 ticking nuke scenario. The danger from the pro-torture right’s argument is that there are no logical limits to what ought to be done in this situation. They’re claiming that these techniques aren’t torture, but that they’re necessary because they could stop an attack.
So let’s pretend for a moment that President Obama didn’t ban these methods. And let’s further pretend that our entire military and intelligence apparatus has failed to detect a loose nuke despite unprecedented resources. We know that there’s a ticking nuke out there. We don’t know where, but we have a suspected terrorist in custody who might know, and the CIA is thusly waterboarding the crap out of him in a mad dash to make up for failing to catch the nuke sooner.
How far should the CIA go in order to adequately extract this information when waterboarding isn’t working and time is of the essence? Cliff May, for instance, says that Muslims are bound by their religion to resist. If, as the pro-torture logic goes, the justification for torture is to thwart an attack — that we have an obligation to use any means necessary to save American lives, where does it end?
International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.
If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
This passage is from George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address. Do we employ Saddam’s methods, or do we draw the the line and, once and for all, agree that America does not torture? No exceptions.
