what it the tortured person was a person with real knowledge of an impending attack and he refused to talk. He is not torturned, the attack takes place, and thousands die, the lincoln tunnel or the brooklyn bridge is blown up. Movies always deal with the innocent missuspected. To say yes the person is guilty but I don't think he should be tortured, that would be really brave. the bravest of all would be to say yes, I would rather take the risk of an attack than torture anyone. But liberals are not honest enough to come out and say this. Conservatives say we would rather have the torture than the risk of the attack. The cost of not having planes flown into buildings or tunnels going up during rush hour, if the cost is torture, we are willing to pay it. The alternative is to have the blow ups. Liberals should attempt to convince the rest of us why it is better to for thousands to be blown up than for a few to be tortured. Of course, they can't.

There are no solutions to this kind of thing. There is wrong and danger and risk on every side. Which danger and risk do you choose? One way liberals deal with this is to argue there is no danger. That is a lie. What liberals really think is that a few terrorist attacks are no big deal and we deserve it anyway. Most of us do not agree

And why are you so convinced that torture yields truth from the tortured? How many true Christian conversions and confessions from the persecuted Jews and Heretics did the Spanish Inquisition net? How many true tactical secrets from American POWs did the Viet-Con extract, from men like John McCain and James Stockdale? The Salem Witch Trials relied on hearsay and torture... and they 'found' many, many witches to burn and drown, 'witches' who 'confessed' under torture their witchcraft - which we now know to be a farce and a low-point in American history.

Setting aside the questionable validity of torture as a method of interrogation, when humans dehumanize other humans, as the Nazis did the Jews and the Hutus did the Tutsis, the degradation spreads even unto both sides of the torture chamber.

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."---Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American author of Common Sense.

Better yet, why not make the husband the perfect family man who nonetheless gets tortured because he is a terrorist who's done (or will do) terrible things? It's easy to come out against rape if a movie is about the rape of Mother Theresa. The rape of Jeffrey Dahmer would be a bit more problematic.

Hollywood will never make a "real world" terrorism movie in which Islamic terrorists are the problem. It's America with all its Christians that has the problem, can't you see? Remember the riots that followed that "Piss Christ" photo years ago? Or the killings in response to Kathy Griffin's recent "suck it, Jesus" comments? No?

And I write this as an atheist. As far as I'm concerned, all Abrahamic theists are fricking nuts; but Islam has a comfortable lead where poor anger-management skills are concerned. But, hey. Fuck Gee Dub. It's all his fault.

talk about dishonesty. In your little thought experiment there, the underlying assumption is that the only way to get this terrorist with certain knowledge of an impending terror attack to talk is torture. Torture is the only tool that will work and once it is off the table, tough crap, everyone dies. Sounds like a false dilemma to me. Please give me one real life example of when torture has been used to prevent a terror attack in this manner. I have yet to hear of a single instance. Furthermore, people on both sides of the torture equation, both perpetrators and victims have repeatedly expressed the opinion that torture is next to worthless when it comes to generating valuable intelligence. John McCain, for all his flaws, has steadfastly asserted time and time again this fact: torture is not only morally wrong, it is not efficacious.

Liberals do not argue that there is no danger, nor do they seriously argue that we deserve to be attacked. That is simply right wing bullshit. Rather, they have looked at the situation and come to a different conclusion than you. Here is my own reasoning for unequivocally opposing torture: there is no evidence that terrorist attacks are such a pervasive danger that we need to scuttle the Constitution to prevent them. But even if you think I am way off the mark on that one, consider this: What if you somehow became a terror suspect, due to an innocent mix-up or some bureaucratic bungling? How confident are you that anyone would ever hear from you again? That the truth about the mistake would ever come to light given the current administration's policy on "enhanced interrogation" and "extraordinary rendition"? Conservatives find it easy to support torture in the abstract because they fail to consider seriously the fact that the government can and does make mistakes in the pursuit of terror suspects and they never for one second ask themselves, "what if this happened to me or someone I care about?" In the mind of the conservative, it's always Jack Bauer versus some crazy raghead who had it coming to him anyways. Most of us do not share this simplistic revenge fantasy (I hope).

rent out The Road to Guantanamo, my friend.

how in the blinkin world can any person decide if another person deserves to be tortured?

Aeschylus, you might want to expand that to include the simplicity with which Hollywood has depicted "Islamic" terrorism as a problem. Jack Bauer is never wrong, CTU procedures are never problematic -- Sleeper Cell is another example.

And, G Dub's incompetence and corruption is his fault. Who else is at fault for it?

Ah, the ole neocon (not that you are one) chestnut - the 24 Hours conundrum - the ticking bomb, the knowing terrorist who just happens to fall into our hands (and we just happen to know who he is and what he knows). If it ever happens, and it probably won’t, what makes anyone think that such a despicable desperado can't grit his teeth, endure the torture by staying focused on the 72 virgins (ugh - inexperienced lovers for eternity - oh joy) that will soon be his? This tired scenario is no excuse for destroying our most honored and fundamental morals and legal principals. Not to mention, as others have, that there is no proof it works. If we are in extremis the terrorist can create false leads to keep us guessing until the bomb goes off. If there is time, other techniques are more likely to produce usable intelligence. I think neocons just like the idea of torture because it's an easy way to be "tough" on someone else's conscience. Just like they love to wage war on someone's dime and someone's else's physical risk.

Liberal arguments come to the same end as I already posted: one, there is no danger. Wrong. Two, it is better to have a terrorist attack then to torture. I don't agree.

What liberals don't get is that democracy and the bill of rights are conditional, like everything else in life. Liberals imagine first you bestow a bill of rights on people and then everything is good. We are trying that in Iraq and it is not working. It is the other way around. First people behave in a way that shows they deserve a bill of rights and they create it themselves. The existence of the bill of rights requires agreement on a million different topics, such as we will not bomb bridges when our candidate loses or even if we are very unhappy or even if we are mistreated. When people can't agree on the rules, then you get war, like the Civil War.

let's turn this argument around. What if a group was going around bombing mosques because of offenses against christians in muslim countries. What if a group of nazis was bombing black churches and the government found out about a plot. Should torture be used to stop a future bombing. At what point does the government have to take the responsibility of preventing criminal acts instead of addressing them afterward. I don't expect anyone to prevent my house from being burgled. But I do expect people to prevent the Lincoln Tunnel from going up

One should know that we have always had torture in war. It is a fact that some did give under the stain of being tortured...That is what it is all about; to get information and it does work with some! But the blog her suggests there is really no wrong side in a war which means they must be young and have not been through any of our World Wars. There is always a bad side! What did the people in the towers do to anyone? We would not want to be tortured, our self, but I must assume we did not attack innocent citizens and America seldom would attack them, either! We only want the bad guys/ladies! It is obviously a religeous war started by terrorists that believe all of the Karan. That means it is a good thing to kill millions in Sudan and elsewhere, and try to convert them, or remove them from this earth! Do we hear any outcry from the U.N. about Sudan? They simply say it is an internal affair! But women have had their breasts cut off without medication, simply to prevent them from giving suck to their child. Men have had their legs sawn off or raped. Women have been raped and sodomized! But that is not torture? Torture should be a last resort and some are actually the good guys who want peace, but are attaxked!

We can see the problem here... as most Liberals want to somehow conclude, people in this Country have the same rights as citizens in this Country? Terrorists have removed their rights, period, no matter what Country they are in! That is not actually true in some Countries, but it certainly should be! You baby them and sacrifice your children and some more in our buildings. The normal and intelligent will see they do not kill our innocent people by whatever means it takes!