Roe vs. Wade - Choice

January 22 1973, the Supreme Court decided the case of Roe v Wade -which will in time join Dred Scott, Plessey v Fergusson, Korematsu v. United States in infamy - allowing people to be “deprived of Life … with out due process of law” as guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment in favor of a unstated right to privacy inferred from a tortured piece of illogic.

Screen shot from UTube Video at Rock the Facts 2009 March for Life

If the equivalent of an abortion was done to a convicted criminal - it would violate the Eight Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.”



But now we are told that we have choice!

But then we always had choices.



What’s yours?

Presents May Be Late

HT: The American Catholic

Torture, Again

Back in 2005 Wretchard (Richard Fernandez) of the Belmont Club posted on the subject of torture:

At one level the debate over the use of torture in the War on Terror is moot. The United States military has a long operational history of forgoing possible practical advantages in favor of upholding certain national values. The most obvious modern example are rules of engagement in the use of fires. During the recently concluded assault on Fallujah and in current operations in Iraq, military restrictions on the use of firepower around mosques or populated areas are enforced with the foreknowledge that such steps will result in statistically higher casualties to troops. This practice follows long historical precedent. The policy of precision daylight bombing during World War 2; the tendency toward 'No First Strike' during the Cold War and even the restriction on political assassinations in the Carter years are all examples of unilateral renunciations of military advantage


Thinking along those lines I posted:

There are several minor points against the use of torture and I would say a
big one.

Minor

It is not very reliable. The subject is inclined to say what will end the session, i.e. what they think the interrogator expects to hear. The interrogator quite possibly does not have the means to sort this out. Since it is what the interrogator expects to hear they will give it little challenge.

Most often they will talk without torture sooner or later.

It opens our soldiers to retaliation in kind. Even if the current enemy does not a future one may do so.

It gives a motive to enemy personnel not to surrender increasing our casualties.

Allowing torture and similar activities tends to break down military discipline. Having allowed it in one case it is much harder to expect orders not to do similar things in other cases to be obeyed.

If it becomes public it creates a terrific public affairs problem and invites outside intervention into the running of our armed forces.

The Major Problem.

If we allow torture then we will sink to the level of Osama bin Laden and
his scum. Even when bin Laden loses (which he will in any case) we will lose
even more!


--------------------

Andrew C. McCarthy is the federal prosecutor who prosecuted the 1993 bombers of the World Trade Center. He was invited to attend a Justice Department conference on fighting terrorism. Part of his response to Attorney General Holder declining to attend:


Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.




/RantMode=ON

When it is prudent to for a lawyer not to provide good faith advice to the government because a change in governmental policy will result in a prosecution for giving that advice; then we can be certain that governmental decisions will not be made with good legal advice, a problem that is much worse than the original problem. Either the decisions makers will be acting blind or assuming they will be prosecuted in any case will simply ignore any limits on their actions.

This kind of legal strategy will tend to put us at the same level as Osama bin Ladin which is what torture does. WE STILL LOSE

/Rant Mode=OFF



NB: I read the memos in question, it is very clear that the authors were trying to offer legal advice. There is difference between bad advice and particpation.

HT: Southern Illinois Catholics

My posts on Torture

Domestic Torturer Indicted

Information and Back ground from Steve Rhodes of the Chicago Tribune

Former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge is out on bail but the story of his prosecution is just starting -- a quarter century after rumors first surfaced about torture in a South Side police station. While a new round of recriminations revs up, there are some details to be gleaned deep in the coverage that are worth pondering.

snip

* "A handful of principled men and women did stand up," the Sun-Times says in its editorial today. "Among them were five aldermen who wrote a letter last year to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald urging him to prosecute Burge for obstruction of justice -- exactly what he now has done. Those aldermen are Bob Fioretti (2nd), Pat Dowell (3rd), Billy Ocasio (26th), Ed Smith (28th) and Helen Shiller (46th)."
That means that 45 aldermen did not sign on to the letter. Nor did the mayor.




The torture first came to light in an article in the Chicago Reader. Which for a long time was the only media bringing the issue to light. Here is their archive.


Even given the dubious history of parts of the Chicago Police Department Cmdr. Burge and his accomplices used a level of torture that was unique and uncommon. But they arrested criminals and who were convicted. The current mayor of Chicago Richard M. Dailey was the Cook County States Attorney at the time and quite willing to use the evidence even though it is believed he had reasons to suspect it’s legality. No one really doubts that the victims were professional criminals and quite likely guilty of the crimes they were tortured into confessing, but torture is always wrong and lowers the police to the level of the criminals. There has been a virtually solid stone wall for those who are trying to investigate what happened. It is a federal indictment because them Chicago political machine stood against an active investigation. It took so long that the statute of limitations is passed and the perpetrators are being tried for perjury in denying under oath that the tortured prisoners.



------------------------------------------------

This is of larger interest, because some of the War on Terror interrigations were conducted using torture. One of the candidates for President represented, as a state Senator approximately the same area as the Police Area Two where the torture occurred. Burge had been fired before Senator Obama took office but those falsely convicted were still in jail.

As best I can find in Google there is no record of Senator Obama speaking up for his constituents who were unjustly jailed. He voted for the law that required interrogations to be video taped (a good idea) which was proposed as the solution, but so did most every one else. This was seven years before the first victim was released from jail. And pro forma press releases recently. But a complete absense of the type of activiism that he know Senator Obama can accomplish when he wants to.


But this is no real surprise, Senator Obama was run by the machine for state Senator four times without primary or general election opposition, the same machine that is headed by Mayor (and former States Attorney) Richard M Dailey.


My prediections. Gitmo will be closed with much fanfare. A few Bush Admistration flunkies will be sent to jail. Torture as a means of policy will continue unabated. When Patrick Fitzgerald is replaced with a Dailey vetted Federal District Attorney the Burge case will fall through the cracks.

Believe Me, It’s Torture

Last year Christopher Hitchens said water boarding is not torture. His critics challenged him to try it. He did. It seems the experience changed his mind. Now he says:

Believe Me, It’s Torture


Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.
Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself deep in the hill country of western North Carolina, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened veterans who had confronted their country’s enemies in highly arduous terrain all over the world. They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation and, in exchange for anonymity, were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like.

Snip

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
August 2008 issue of Vanity Fair


Read the whole article


HT: Willow at Dean’s World

Election 2008 Overview

It looks like Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and McCain will win the Republican nomination.


I took the rolling poll tracking data for the for the candidates at Rassmusen Reports and copied them into a spread sheet starting from December First. I averaged the results for each day with an average of the previous ten days. (The entry for the tenth is an average of the first to the tenth, the entry for the eleventh is an average of the second to the eleventh) This smoothes the results eliminating minor day to day variances in public opinion or errors in a particular days samplings. The disadvantage of this method is it is not very sensitive to the last several day’s results. (I am not reproducing the data because Rasmussen will be happy to sell you similar data, more professionally done.) Of course individual primaries and caucuses will not accurately reflect the national average and may be more important in the actual nomination.


On the Democratic side Clinton has been holding at the high thirties nationally. Obama is in the low very high twenties low thirties and Edwards in the Low twenties. These numbers are stable for a month and a half. I suspect she will win the Democratic nomination. The question is how much anti-Clinton sentiment there is in the undecided and Edwards supporters. Normally you would expect them split between Clinton and Obama proportionally, but there is too much Clinton angst to make that a safe bet.

I don’t see much in any of them to vote for. As is often pointed out that the so-called Neo-conservatives are not actual conservatives. They rebelled from the main stream of the left because they saw those policies as morally and intellectually bankrupt. Though their ideas are much better than the main stream left they are not really conservative. Left Wing Lite so to speak. Most of what got President Bush in trouble in Iraq and domestically came from the baggage they brought with them to Bush's coalition. The thought of going from Left Wing Lite to the high calorie version does not seem exciting.

In the 2000 Presidential debates Al Gore said he thought Nation Building was a good policy for the US military. This was reflecting the traditional Wilsonian ideas. Bush disagreed. The US should only use it's armed forces to protect our vital interests. Iraq is basically a Nation Building project, justified by the Bush Administration as response to Nine Eleven. This was the result of the Neocon’s increased influence after Nine Eleven. It may not have been Iraq, but Gore would have had much less inhibition to getting us into similar activities even without Nine Eleven. I see no reason to assume a new Democratic administration would not continue the traditional Democratic military policy.If you thought Iraq was fun - Vote Democratic.





The Republican side is more interesting.

Giuliani, the long time expected Republican nominee is doing a nosedive. Every three or four days since December First he has been losing a percentage point If this continues he will be in negative numbers in late February. None the less the perceptive Anchoress gives him her Endorsement:

It is easy to forget, particularly if you did not live in New York in the months following 9/11, that Rudy Giuliani went to the wakes or funerals of nearly every lost cop and firefighter in the city, sometimes going from one funeral to the next in a single day. He even walked a bride down the aisle, after she’d lost her firefighter father and brother. He was tremendous and authentic, and he showed courage, commitment and leadership.

She is right, he is the best leader in a crisis of all the candidates, but I am not at all sure what direction he will lead in the more normal affairs of government. He is not at all solid on social conservative or fiscal issues, issues that need solid leadership in directions he does not support.



Romney has been climbing slowly to the low twenties and holding. Thompson is steady at ten to twelve percent. I think they have found their level and will not go anywhere, assuming none of the other candidates does something stupid. These would both be reasonable Presidents but I am not sure they are enough of a candidate to win. Romney may be able to position himself with enough recognition that he will be a much better candidate in 2012 or 2016. The more I see of Thompson the more I like him, but at a steady ten to twelve percent he not going anywhere.



Huckabee has been doing a slow gain picking up a net of about fifteen points from a starting point of twelve percent. He has been doing a good job of bringing some very disappointed social conservatives into the process. I think the real question is can he deliver them to whomever is the candidate the Republicans nominate. The Republicans can’t win with out this support. The biggest problem was nicely summed up by Peggy Noonan.

From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools' squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don't admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don't need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs. They fear that the other Republican candidates are caught up in a million smaller issues--taxing, spending, the global economy, Sunnis and Shia--and missing the central issue: again, our culture. They are populists who vote Republican, and as I have read their letters, I have felt nothing but respect.

But there are two problems. One is that while the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America. That is something conservatives used to know. Second, I'm sorry to say it is my sense that Mr. Huckabee is not so much leading a movement as riding a wave. One senses he brilliantly discerned and pursued an underserved part of the voting demographic, and went for it.


John McCain was down to the low teens in mid December and has been sky rocketing up ever since. I think this reflects that in addition to his strong base at about his minimum in December, but he also is an acceptable candidate to the undecided and acceptable as a second or third choice of the Republicans who support other candidates and acceptable to independents in the general election. But with that much soft support it is easy to stumble.

El Jefe of the The Kingdom of Chaos calls John McCain the the Most Viable Conservative.

So convince me, people. I'll go with the most viable conservative. McCain's voting record in Congress is in general conservative, and he can win. Show me somebody else who can win. Show me somebody else as persistent. Think on something else: McCain could have been anointed -- walked into this nomination if he wanted -- all he had to do was back-off a bunch of stands that have irritated the Hell out of a lot of us. Okay, most of us on the conversative side of things disagree with his stands. But he made them anyway. He didn't maneuver for advantage, when it was clearly in his interest to do so. He did his duty as he saw it. Show me somebody else, who -- at such great political cost to himself: stands up for what he thinks . . .


Gerald of the The Cafeteria is Closed quotes Gerard V. Bradley of Notre Dame University on McCain’s prolife record. He may actually be stronger on social conservativism in practice than Huckabee.

Of the remaining pro-life Republicans, none can match McCain’s record of opposing abortion. He has served in Congress for 24 years, and cast a lot of votes on abortion legislation during that time. His record is not merely exemplary — it is perfect. McCain’s votes on abortion really could not be better. A campaign advertisement in South Carolina says of John McCain: “Pro-life. Not just recently. Always. Never wavering.” The ad is true....Twenty-four years of service at the national level — almost all of them in the Senate — make a big difference when we are talking about the next President, compared to candidates who have been small-state governors. There is no need to speculate or to rely upon promises or take matters on faith when it comes to McCain and abortion. He has demonstrated himself to be the best pro-life choice.


Identifying the best presidential pro-life candidate is very largely about judges, as well as particular issues. The next president is likely to (no one can say for sure, of course) have a couple of vacancies on the Supreme Court to fill. Given the Court’s present makeup and who is likely to be replaced, these two nominations will either tip the balance against Roe, or confirm it once again for a whole generation. For if the Court revisits the question of Roe’s basic validity in, say, 2010, it will not do so again for a very long time.(The last time was Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992.) McCain’s “model” of a Supreme Court Justice are — he has said — Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.I mentioned a recent South Carolina advertisement about McCain’s pro-life voting record. As good as that record is, the ad contained still more powerful evidence of his pro-life convictions. This part of the ad shows Cindy McCain walking beside a diminutive Catholic nun. Mrs. McCain is holding an infant in her arms. It is (the ad text says) “little Bridget, a baby she and John adopted in 1993 from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. Bridget has been a great blessing to the McCain family.”


McCain seems to be the best (or least worse) of the candidates. However I am not entirely happy with him. The McCain Finegold Act denies freedom of speech, but nothing like the so called hate speech laws advocated by the Democrats; those parts of the act should be repealed or ruled unconstitutional. His grandstanding on torture with proposed legislation that was so poorly written that it could increase the use of torture was disappointing. (The link is my post.)

He is the best the candidate that’s running, but I think I will keep my old endorsement until I accommodate myself to reality.


Update 8 PM,Jan 19, 2008: I corrected some grammer errors and rewrote some text that was not clear. I shouldn't post after midnight.

Senator McCain and Torture

Wretchard at the Belmont Club has made an open post asking questions on the McCain Admendment restricting torture. He includes the text and related links.

A long time ago, I presented my opnion on Torture which bears repeating. The comments below I posted as a contribution to Wretchards discussion.


The GWOT torture presents an opportunity that would not appear in a
conventional war. In a conventional war one would capture a 100 or so prisoners
and a reasonable percentage will blab without any pressure. There is no point in
torturing the rest for duplicate information. Officers and technitions with
valuable information are not allowed near the front. In the GWOT because other
means of information are less usable, a single prisoner can be potential source of
major information. Is this a justification for torture?

I would say not.


There are several minor points against the use of torture and I would say a
big one.

Minor

It is not very reliable. The subject is inclined to say what will end the
session, i.e. what they think the interrogator expects to hear. The interrogator
quite possibly does not have the means to sort this out. Since it is what the
interrogator expects to hear they will give it little challenge.

Usually the prisoner will talk without torture sooner or later.

It opens our soldiers to retaliation in kind. Even if the
current enemy does not a future one may do so.

It gives a motive to enemy personnel not to surrender, increasing our
casualties.

Allowing torture and similar activities tends to break down military
discipline. Having allowed it in one case it is much harder to expect orders not
to do similar things to be obeyed in other cases.

If it becomes public it creates a terrific public affairs problem and
invites outside intervention into the running of our armed forces.

The Major Problem.

If we allow torture then we will sink to the level of Osma bin Laden and
his scum. Even when bin Laden loses (which he will in any case) we will lose
even more!



-------------

Jon Holdaway writing in Phil Carters Intel Dump that the admendment is another case of

. . . bad cases make bad law, and this is a prime example. Congress' desire to get its arm around the detainee abuse scandals is understandable, but to shift from its oversight role to its lawmaking role in order to fix the problem is not the approach to take. Statutes, by their nature, are like using a chain saw to do brain surgery, especially in an esoteric and complicated area such as interrogations.


The key paragraph of the law states:

(a) IN GENERAL.--No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

It seems to me that Senator McCains staff did not do much research.

Field manuals are usually cited by number (FM-XX) and date as well as title. So what is being refered to here? Can the Secretary of the Army change the law by amending the Field Manual? I suppose the courts will hold to the version in effect on the date of passage, hoping there aren’t two field manauals that address the issue. In any case it is usually considered good pratice for in items central to a law regulation or such to copy the text into the document rather than include something by referance.

A field manual is technically a recommendation not an order. The manual is written as reccomendations to approachs among legal techniques, not as a list of what is legal or not. Holdaway gives good review of the problems this will cause.

Is this to be part of Title X (Department of Defense) or XVIII (Criminal) of the Federal Code. Following the link back to Wretchards source the orgianal states At the appropriate place, insert the following: Since it does not list sanctions it is probably intended for Title X. If it were part of Title XVIII then any civilian official who violates the action the section would face criminal prosecution. If it is under Title X only military personnel would be subject to this criminal action under Article 92(1) (Disobeying a general order) or Article 134 (Conduct Prejudicial.) I would think that a law of this type should carry sanctions for everyone involved. This will leave the little guys holding the bag for directives that the higher up assured were legal.

The amendment is that it is worded so as not to interfere in normal criminal prosecutions, and to define prohibited actions in terms that follow existing case law. Not having either of these would cause intolerable amounts of confusion. But Holdaway points out this could import criminal procedure into POW interrogation procedures. A POW is not normally being interrogated with intent to prosecute; criminal procedure would at best be irrelevant.



I have no use for torture, but laws writen for public relations usually turn out to cause more problems than the solve. This could very well turn out like the “War Powers Act” which actully gives the President more war powers than he had previously, the exact opposite of the authors intent.

Cross posted to Wretcherds post.



UPDATE November 13,2005:

Wretchard made a follow up post. He writes:

I'm going to make a personal prediction. The number of incidents involving the torture of terrorist suspects will increase after the McCain Amendment, or something like it, is passed. There will be a fall in the number of interrogation incidents in US custody. It may even become zero. However, there will be a corresponding increase in torture incidents involving agencies of other governments, including European governments, all of whom will fully subscribe to every piece of human rights legislation which can be imagined, but who in practice will simply do what they want.

I don’t think that was going very far out on a limb.

Forsaken

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,
"Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?" that is,


My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?


Why art thou so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day,
but thou dost not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In thee our fathers trusted; they trusted,
and thou didst deliver them.

To thee they cried, and were saved;
in thee they trusted,
and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men,
and despised by the people.
they make mouths at me, they wag their heads;

"He committed his cause to the LORD;
let him deliver him, let him rescue him,
for he delights in him!"

Yet thou art he who took me from the womb;
thou didst keep me safe upon my mother's breasts.

Upon thee was I cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me thou hast been my God.

Be not far from me,
for trouble is near and there is none to help.

Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
They open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast;

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

Yea, dogs are round about me;
a company of evildoers encircle me;
they have pierced my hands and feet--

I can count all my bones-- they stare and gloat over me;
they divide my garments among them,
and for my raiment they cast lots.


But thou, O LORD, be not far off!
O thou my help, hasten to my aid!
Deliver my soul from the sword,

My life from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion,
my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!

I will tell of thy name to my brethren;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee:

You who fear the LORD, praise him!
all you sons of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel!

For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
and he has not hid his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.

From thee comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.

The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live for ever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.

For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.

Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and he who cannot keep himself alive.

Posterity shall serve him;

men shall tell of the Lord

to the coming generation,
and proclaim his deliverance

to a people yet unborn,

that he has wrought it.


Good Friday
Mathew 27;46 and Psalm 22 RSVCE overlapping

Abraham Lincoln on Terri Schiavo

In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrent of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

Lincoln Douglan debate June 26,1857


Ok, he is talking about the Dred Scott decision. But with minor changes for gender and place to indict the guilty who could tell. At least Dred Scott was not starved to death.


Christopher Blosser does round ups better than any one. Check it out.

Torture

Wretchard at the Belmont Club has made a post on the use of torture in the GWOT followed by spirited discussion in comments. He points out that there can be intentional constraints on a military force that increase the risk of friendly casualties such as rules of engagement. He counts prohibitions on torture in this category. He is questioning if this restriction is still relevant.


I posted this into his comments section.


In the WOT torture presents an opportunity that would not appear in a
conventional war. In a conventional war one would capture a 100 or so prisoners
and a reasonable percentage will blab without any pressure. There is no point in
torturing the rest for duplicate information. Officers and technitions with
valuable information are not allowed near the front. In the WOT because other
means of information are less usable, a prisoner can be potential source of
major information. Is this a justification for torture?

I would say not.


There are several minor points against the use of torture and I would say a
big one.

Minor

It is not very reliable. The subject is inclined to say what will end the
session, i.e. what they think the interrogator expects to hear. The interrogator
quite possibly does not have the means to sort this out. Since it is what the
interrogator expects to hear they will give it little challenge.

Most often they will talk without torture sooner or later.

It opens our soldiers to retaliation in kind. Even if the
current enemy does not a future one may do so.

It gives a motive to enemy personnel not to surrender increasing our
casualties.

Allowing torture and similar activities tends to break down military
discipline. Having allowed it in one case it is much harder to expect orders not
to do similar things in other cases to be obeyed.

If it becomes public it creates a terrific public affairs problem and
invites outside intervention into the running of our armed forces.

The Major Problem.

If we allow torture then we will sink to the level of Osma bin Laden and
his scum. Even when bin Laden loses (which he will in any case) we will lose
even more!



UPDATE: 072125 January 2005

Wretchard has made a follow up post that provides a better coverage of the issues.

He also has a link that suggests the real problem is much different than reported in the press.