Here is something else to think about:

What I wrote below could happen to you, at any time, at any place. Your life could just about be erased. You could never be heard from again. You could just...disappear?

Think I'm wrong? Think again. If it's easy for someone to steal your identity (hit your mailbox, your trash, rob your house, lift your wallet, phish you) and ruin your life, it is just as easy for some anonymous person/persons to come and whisk you off.

It's a slippery moral slope indeed, sanctioning torture as a government. But then again...who said government existed to be moral? I thought it existed to protect the interests of it's people? You can also make the argument that we should not torture just because our ever shifting and nebulous "enemies" do it...and that by doing it, we lower ourselves to their level. To which I say PSHAW! or perhaps PHOEY! It becomes a matter of splitting a hair. If you accept that taking another human life is wrong, then by extension war must be wrong (regardless of circumstance), therefore self defense is wrong (meek shall inherit, etc), and therefore you should lay down and let things be perpetrated against you.

Right. It's natural to fear death. It's natural to fight back, to stand up for yourself and assert yourself when threatened. 50 years of National Geographic should have taught us all that :-)

BTW, just because I said I agree with it doesn't mean I could do it myself. I would be frighteningly comfortable with the psychological aspects of it, but physical torture, sexual degredation, etc. would not be my cup of tea.

I find it ironic that I'm even having these thoughts. I consider myself a pacifist. I abhor violence. I do not even like boxing. I have only ever hit one person in my life (and I kicked her at that). I am still afraid of guns. I find the root of a modern war or conflict is always about economic gain, and not about an ideal. And yet to stop a war from happening - to stop so called collateral damage where the lives of other entirely innocent people happen to be claimed as we kill each other for whatever flavor we have this month - can one not make a case for SELECTIVELY being a bit persuasive?

Even some of the things I've read I've found disgusting. Modern tools aren't designed to just kill (like the Iron Maiden - ever seen one of those in real life? ugh), they are designed to break both your mind and your body. Waterboarding - strapping someone down and pouring water on their face to simulate drowning. Experts claim that if done properly waterboarding causes no lasting physical damage. If done improperly, the subject can break bones, have brain damage and die. It would be harder to say what it does to someone psychologically, but I've read where it has made people afraid to do simple daily tasks like take a shower. Can you imagine being afraid to take a shower? Ok, yes, I agree - that's a fucking bad thing, and no one should be subjected to that.

It does happen though. We do it to our own people to prepare them in case they are ever captured by enemy forces.

What about sensory deprivation? Is that torture? Some people do it for fun? Extended deprivation of all the senses can literally drive you mad. Wouldn't you break? The minute you saw light, or heard a noise other than the beat of your own heart, which you could feel but not hear, the relief would overwhelm you and you'd feel such gratitude that you would say anything to anyone just to not ever go back in the box.

Like I said: these things don't exactly sit comfortably with me. However...if the lives of 300 children and 50 teachers are at risk due to an impending biological attack, you had better bet that I will find out what I need to know in order to prevent those deaths.

Anyway, sorry, off soapbox.

I'm not offended at anything anyone has to say on this subject. I'm very curious actually to hear other POV's. I'd never really considered a stance on this until this year, except to blanketly say that "torture is wrong".

I've had a rethink.