TORTURE TO PREVENT ANOTHER 9/11?

Marty Lederman at Balkinization writes today about the outrageous adoption and acceptance of the use of torture by most of the Republican presidential candidates at the debate last Tuesday in South Carolina:

"Don't let the fast-moving Comey affair distract you from the other outrage of the month -- the fact that at the same time high-ranking military leaders are disclaiming torture and abuse in the strongest possible terms, most of the leading presidential candidates of the Republican Party have been tripping over themselves in an effort to be the candidate who will commit to greatest number of war crimes, treaty breaches and statutory violations if he should be so fortunate as to be elected Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy."

Apart from John McCain, the other Republicans, especially Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, seemed to heartily endorse the idea, as in, "what do we do when we catch a terrorist and want to know the details of a forthcoming terrorist operation so that we can prevent another 9/11?"

I have a question for torture's proponents: would you personally confess if you were subject to water-boarding or other "enhanced interrogatory methods?" Or take a technique from the Inquisition and volunteer to be the person accused of heresy. Then suffer something fort et dur, like being compressed between two planks with the screws tightening every 10 minutes. Or being held under water for increasing longer periods, something similar to water-boarding. I am sure you can think of other "effective" methods.

Okay, let's leave Mitt and Rudy out of this. Let's test these methods on George and Dick. Would they confess to being part of Al Qaeda? Would they admit they were planning to set off a dirty bomb? Would they sign a confession no matter what it described?

The answer is yes, even George Bush, even Dick Cheney, would confess to being part of the worst terrorist organization if they were subject to interrogation using torture. They would tell and admit anything they thought their interrogators wanted. And that is the trouble with these methods. A person will say anything to stop the pain, whether physical or mental. Torture as a method does not work and will never work.