That’s a dig at Sullivan, honora. He lives in Ptown.

Allahpundit on August 17, 2006 at 9:53 AM

..and here I am thinking it was a dig at his sexual orientation…..shame on me (I hope).

It is more than a little irrational and contradictory to want to have it both ways, with illegal torture coupled with a hope that the law will be willfully violated. Any law willfully violated in such a manner by good men is obviously an unjust law, so I think what you are saying here is that the US should have a two-faced policy of saying that torture is always wrong, but practicing it when we think it is probably right.

Here’s why I don’t think this is irrational: torture is rarely absolutely justified before the fact. That is, someone might be absolutely sure that this person knows something about an upcoming mass murder, but wouldn’t be able to prove it in a court of law. They can only be vindicated after the fact — after they decide to torture or not to torture. That’s the sort of heart-wrenching decision that cannot be made by a court. So while torture is not always wrong, its just instances are not legally definable. Unless you can write the phrase “Jack Bauer sh**” into the law… :-)

Torture should be illegal, but if someone sees an opportunity where committing an illegal act could save thousands of lives… I’d want them to carry it out. If they end up being justified… if a plot was really stopped by their actions, it’s unlikely that a jury will convict them. If they end up having acted improperly, then they’ll rot in jail.

I have a problem with this. You are correct to say that Jack Bauer situations are not always realistic, and perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of them is that Jack Bauer isn’t rotting in jail. I have only seen parts of 24, but the pattern seems to be that he does all kinds of illegal things, only to be saved by the results he gets. In reality, I really don’t think there is a single Jack Bauer in the US government, and if there was he would be ruthlessly stamped out by the bureaucracy.

So what we are left with is a situation where good people in government WANT to do the right thing, but don’t want to rot in jail for it. Torture is an extremely controversial subject, and there are many absolutists who, unreasonably in my opinion, refuse to accept that torture is often the lesser of two evils.

It is more than a little irrational and contradictory to want to have it both ways, with illegal torture coupled with a hope that the law will be willfully violated. Any law willfully violated in such a manner by good men is obviously an unjust law, so I think what you are saying here is that the US should have a two-faced policy of saying that torture is always wrong, but practicing it when we think it is probably right.

Perhaps, for political reasons, this nation will never be able to legalize torture in any public way, even in the most extreme circumstances, but if that is the case, then the only way to rough up terrorists to any degree is to do exactly what the administration did do: define torture in a somewhat narrow way, and conduct its coercive interrogations secretly.

The main problem with torture is that it is very effective, and that because it is so effective, it becomes a crutch. Once it becomes a crutch, it can become so widespread that it becomes arguably counter-productive. I think virtually everyone that supports torture in limited situations opposes the routine torture you see in many of the more oppressive 3rd world countries today. I don’t see this ever being a relevant issue in the context of any discussion of torture in countries like the US and UK.

Hate to disappoint, but if it’s happening in Pakistan, it doesn’t really rile me up to defend the areas of the American Constitution that would be violated were this to happen on U.S. soil. I don’t obey Pakistani law here in the U.S. and I don’t expect them to obey our law over there.

I’m pretty iffy on the plausibility of this reported scheme, at least how it is being reported, so claiming this as 2,500 to 3,000 lives saved seems premature to me. That assumes a lot of things, like the continuance of flights after the first attack, that seem unlikely. But I’ve only dabbled in organic chemistry, so I’ll leave that subject to more studious minds to debate.

The problem with people proposing Jack Bauer situations (big 24 fan, by the way) is that things are never as clear as they are in Hollywood. Heck, even in 24 Jack tortured an innocent civilian. If I were to know — for a fact — that someone was going to commit mass murder… I wouldn’t even require a room without windows. I’d kneel them down in the middle of Main Street and put the gun in their mouth and do whatever it took to get the information. But I wouldn’t expect my actions to be legally sanctioned.

And if it’s going to happen anyway, why not bring it inside the judicial system so that at least there’s some oversight? If anything, it’d probably lead to less torture, not more.

This I’ll give you. I’d rather that the torture be brought into the light for people to praise its successes and decry its failings, than have it all happen in a dark room without any sort of oversight. At least then people would be able to make an informed decision about it. Now, we don’t even know if any Jack Bauer-type stuff is even happening, or if it is happening, if it is working. As such we are limited to hypothetical judgments.

the moral calculus is sufficiently compelling in such cases that regardless of what the law says, the feds aren’t going to stand around with their hands in the pockets hoping that the suspect has a crisis of conscience

I agree… and this is my solution to the issue. Torture should be illegal, but if someone sees an opportunity where committing an illegal act could save thousands of lives… I’d want them to carry it out. If they end up being justified… if a plot was really stopped by their actions, it’s unlikely that a jury will convict them. If they end up having acted improperly, then they’ll rot in jail. That’s the incentive against torture becoming commonplace. The consequences of inaction (the terrorist plot) have to be greater than the consequences of action (30 years in jail) for them to go ahead with it.

We just cut their heads off to music.

Not as much info but more fair

In what is increasingly looking like some sort of sad experiment to see how many times one man can jump the shark in the course of one career, Andrew Sullivan suggests that he thinks there’s something hoax-ish about the 8/10 bust. (I use the wiggly…..

Anyway. Here’s where our brilliant and beloved webmaster, Mark Jaquith, leaves a horrified comment threatening to flagellate himself at the very suggestion of such an idea.

Boo-yah!! :))

The guy who might have been tortured in Pakistan should consider himself lucky – at least we didn’t send Jack Bauer to extact information from his sorry a–.

Results?

World = 0
Terrorist = 1

Terrorist win again, by playing to our weaknesses (playing to our fears).

Will we ever learn?

Or will we continue to play the patsy in this most dangerous game?