torture

Though the presidential candidates say nothing about torture as they round up Super Tuesday (Mardi Gras) votes, the Director of the CIA has just confessed (my verb) before congress, according to the Guardian, that terrorist suspects were waterboarded after the 9/11 attacks.

Many refer to the ticking bomb scenario as justification for torture; ie, if many lives could be saved by information that might be gathered by torturing a suspect, the torture would be justified.

But as David Lubin has written, "the real debate is not between one guilty man's pain and hundreds of innocent lives. It is the certainty of anguish and the mere possibility of learning something vital and saving lives."

I recommend Lubin's article, published in the Virginia Law Review:

http://www.virginialawreview.org/articles.php?article=77

Then perhaps ask your candidate what he or she thinks. If the good guys condone torture, how will we tell them from the bad guys?