The USFG should disallow torture and forgo using it as an interrogation technique.

I will answer your first point and rebuttal in two ways. The first is through the argument that torture is ineffective. There is no way to know that a person holds knowledge beforehand, any information must be verified after applying the torture. What I mean is, underlying your point there is the inherent assumption that you are in fact, torturing someone who does know something. However, in the manner torture is applied, you can torture 100 people and get 1 statement of truth from them, along with 99 untrue statements-a waste of resources and manpower. However, it is impossible to ascertain whether you will *ever* get true information from torture. "Torture is an ineffective counterinsurgency strategy. One defense of torture is the "ticking bomb" scenario - the idea that an imminent, massive threat to civilians might be stopped by a single detainee who possesses crucial information and will yield actionable intelligence under physical coercion. Despite fearful anecdotal claims, the effectiveness of torture in generating intelligence is questionable at best. But we do know that torture produces many false confessions and new enemies, and distracts from more effective, legitimate techniques of interrogation and intelligence-gathering." (1) I would contend that there are better means of information-gathering, such as building trust and cooperation within Muslim communities. Local cooperation, allies such as Pakistan, etc, are all means to gain reliable information. Torture however, erodes our ability to maintain trust. "Preventing terrorism is a question of good police work, built on strong ties with the communities that host insurgents, sophisticated knowledge of criminal networks, and swift cooperation among agencies and allies. But current US tactics alienate global publics and local communities, while the secrecy torture requires fosters bureaucratic bungling." (1) The second answer I would make to your point is on a moral level. Your argument is circular. You can only justify the statement "If that is true, then if they knew the truth, they would state it, to stop the torture from continuing." after they've been tortured, not before. So you claim 'It's legitimate to torture terrorists because we know they're withholding information, but we don't have proof that they know anything until they reveal it under torture'. You need some sort of external reasoning as to why we *know* that these individuals have information without using information gained from torture as a legitimation of the practice. It's like being back in the 15th century and having the Church call someone a heretic. They have no external proof that you are a heretic, and how do they get proof? They torture you until you confess, and then say "Look this person confessed! They are a heretic! Torture is legitimate!" There is no situation in which torture can be considered legitimate by external reasoning. The only way you can legitimate torture is by the end result, forcing you to forgo the negative nature of the action itself. The reasoning for torture can be defined as thus: 1. We *believe* that an individual has important information that they are withholding. 2. There is a pressing need to obtain this information. 3. We will go to any means, including causing psychological and physical harm in order to get the information. 4. The causing of that psychological and physical harm will be justified by the results we obtain. This logic is inherently wrong: It gives no value to the psychological and physical harm incurred in the process of torture. When you evaluate on a means-ends basis, you must determine if the harm incurred in the means is outweighed by the potential harm incurred by the ends. I would argue that to torture is to forgo the calculation of harm incurred in the means. You say "We don't care if we cause this person harm because we want the information from them." This applies to any torture. There is no clear standard which we can apply which says 'it is legitimate to torture X person and not Y person" because at the point where we come to believe that A. Torture is legitimate and B. Y person is withholding valuable information, we can then apply torture to Y. So to say that it is legitimate to torture some persons, you must also be willing to say that it is legitimate to torture *any* person that is believed to be withholding information. Consider this scenario: Your close family member/friend was involved in situation that could potentially relate to a terrorist attack. They have knowledge of the situation, but they don't want to say anything because their knowledge isn't certain and they're worried about getting it wrong, and getting the wrong person hurt. Is it legitimate to torture them in order to get that information? For this reason, we have to consider that the harm incurred in torturing one person is equal to any end harm that could possibly come about. To legitimate torture is to declare that life in and of itself has no value, that the value of life is only arbitrary, and can be stripped away at the whim of a government or person. You say 'So what we declare the lives of terrorists conspiring to kill innocent Americans to be "worthless"' It is this attitude that truly scares me. It doesn't bother you if I tell you 'the Government has the ability to randomly label a person as an 'enemy combatant', strip them of any rights, apply physical and psychological torture to them? The concept of 'worthlessness' is the concept which belies genocide, mass murder, etc. To be able to view another human being as worthless is to arbitrarily declare that 'This person no longer has the right to live. Because I say so.' Are you God, to be able to declare this? And you go further than this! You contend that we can apply *mass* torture, and then compare stories to find the truth. Scenario: The KKK plan to bomb a church in Missouri. The FBI collects every 10th white man with any hint of connection to the KKK in Missouri and then tortures them, and compares their stories. Is this legitimate? The broad, arbitrary powers your logic grants to the government is truly frightening. To say that mass torture is a legitimate tool of information gathering is an obscenity. To your second point: "Torture escalates conflict. The use of torture by targeted societies is strongly associated with an increase in the severity of terror used against them. In interviews with imprisoned terror leaders from the Palestinian territories to India, they state that they adopted and were supported in bloodier tactics when democratic enemies resorted to torture and attacks on civilians. The "torture-terror nexus" can be seen in Israel. The first intifada was militant but largely peaceful, while the second intifada was characterized by suicide bombings. The tough Israeli response to the first, which an Israeli inquiry showed involved the mistreatment of about 85 percent of Palestinian prisoners, appears to have temporarily suppressed one uprising while planting the seeds of greater violence in the next." (1,2) To your third point: This is illogical. Stopping terrorism requires international cooperation. How can the US, which is declared as a protector of human rights, ask other countries for help to fight terrorism and in promoting human rights if we violate the sanctity of the human being by torture? "The promotion of democracy and human rights is a key element of U.S. foreign policy and fosters a rules-based international system anchored in the protection of human dignity. But our ability to achieve this goal -- indeed, even our adherence to this strategic objective -- is severely compromised when our own conduct is widely perceived to violate human rights." (2)