Thread: unthinkable

I just watched the movie unthinkable and found it quite interesting. My question is, if you had someone in custody that new were a nuclear device was is it acceptable to torture? I think so, even though I am against torture in general.

[quote name='anonnymous' date='24 May 2010 - 08:51 PM' timestamp='1274759507' post='154785']

I just watched the movie unthinkable and found it quite interesting. My question is, if you had someone in custody that new were a nuclear device was is it acceptable to torture? I think so, even though I am against torture in general.

[/quote]



Once you open that door, it would make it easier to justify again. That is a tough one. Would it morally be right to put a person through extreme pain to save others? I would hope that I was never put into a situation where I would find out if I could do it.

Well, the movie created a scenario which I never considered. This guy had set up 3 nuclear devises in 3 different locations and sent the authorities a video stating what day and time the devices would go off. They captured the guy and tried to get the locations from him.



Is torture acceptable under those circumstances?

[quote name='anonnymous' date='25 May 2010 - 08:43 AM' timestamp='1274791395' post='154870']

Well, the movie created a scenario which I never considered. This guy had set up 3 nuclear devises in 3 different locations and sent the authorities a video stating what day and time the devices would go off. They captured the guy and tried to get the locations from him.



Is torture acceptable under those circumstances?

[/quote]



How much time do you have?

[quote name='Blueneck' date='25 May 2010 - 09:41 AM' timestamp='1274794886' post='154886']

How much time do you have?

[/quote]



I think it was 3 days.

[quote name='Lysander Spooner' date='25 May 2010 - 04:00 AM' timestamp='1274774447' post='154829']

Torture is a violation of human rights, as plain and simple as there ever was.



Is it okay to use it as an excuse for an intelligence failure? Probably not.



At best you have a guess as to whether the torture will prevent another violation of human rights.



Are you willing to torture someone on the basis of a guess?



Because, if your intel is that bad to where you have to torture someone in the first place, then you surely don't know "for sure" whether the person knows or not. And if you knew "for sure", you wouldn't have to torture him.



These scenarios are constructed in the paranoid minds of Neo-Cons. In reality, we pay our government for good intel. If they fail on the intel front, then I don't think we should be paying them again for human rights violations in the peoples' name.

[/quote]

Forget about the ticking time bomb scenario for a second here. Let's go with a scenario that is based on something that happened in Iraq a few years ago. After a fire fight, a US soldier is captured by some insurgents. However, US forces also capture some insurgents. Knowing the fate of soldiers in insurgent custody and with time an issue as well, how far can US forces go in questioning their prisoners?

This scenario isn't necessarily a failure in intelligence. The US has very good electronic intelligence; satellite and surveillance. But we're lacking in human intelligence in many areas, particularly in the Middle East. And for obvious reasons, it's pretty difficult to insert agents into insurgent groups or buy off religios fanatics.

A couple years ago, on a forum far away from here, I borrowed and analogy from the columnist Andrew Sullivan that asked, (paraphrasing) "Would you have gay sex to stop a terrorist attack?"



I would. But I probably wouldn't torture someone.