Is Torture Right?

Torture is in the news quite a bit lately.

Here is one article written by a Retired Marine (http://www.thebutter-cutter.com/Torture_in_Interrogation.php) and another from the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?ref=opinion).

"Water-boarding," or other extreme/ traditional methods of interrogation can be effective if used correctly or can simply elicit stop-the-pain responses.

The real issues here, in my mind anyway, are: 1. Defining torture, and 2. Does the end justify the means?

At what point does physically or verbally communicating with someone become torture? I can recall numerous professors who "tortured" their students with hour after hour of grueling powerpoint slides. I can also recall Drill Instructors "training" me with hundreds of push-ups and 8-count body-builders. Where is the line?

In both of those cases, I think the end justified the means. I learned the lessons they were trying to teach me and am a better man because of it... but their lessons were intended for a very, very small audience. They were influencing me, a classroom, or a platoon of Marines, at most.

Information gleaned from a solid interrogation is often used to protect thousands if not millions of American lives. That said, effective intelligence impossible to quantify. You never know how many lives were saved because a "9/11" was averted by good intelligence. We don't know what our intelligence has prevented or how much good was done because of "water-boarding" or other traditional methods.

We simply cannot see the ends the means has brought about and therefore cannot tell whether the ends justify the means.

All that said, I am against inhumane treatment of all sorts against all non-combatants; however, I am also all for doing what needs to be done to protect non-combatants as well.

Any thoughts?

Semper Fi,
m