I'm pleased to see so many people have joined the discussion.
Hal, I have to say that your posts all seem to indicate that you support torture as an interrogation technique. It seems that you are saying you support it because it may save lives. It will save lives, you say, if the information extracted can help stop a crime.
Most evidence seems to say that information obtained under torture is not reliable. Therefore, it will not save lives.
Then you say that whether the information is reliable is not the point. That bringing it up is a "strawman." But I thought the whole reason you were supporting it was to extract information, perhaps to stop a crime and save a life.
So I am unclear on what your position here is. Do you think that the USA should introduce torture as a legal method for extracting information. And if so, when should it be used? Who should administer it? Should it be used in regular prisons and jails or only in special holding centers? Who should it be used on?
Maybe those are too many questions. But it seems, from your posts, that you are, in fact, condoning and advocating torture as a regular method of interrogation in the USA. Are you? If not, what is your position on torture in this country?
It also seems, from your posts, that you think Obama should continue with what was going on a Gitmo, because the techniques there were, in fact, producing viable and useful information. If you do think that, I would be very interested in seeing any evidence of it. From what I have read, not one useful scrap of info came out of the waterboarding and other techniques used there.