[Doctor Stochastic]

Reasonable definition of terrorism. Of course, your definition "Also, those who randomly use guns, rockets, mortors, grenades, explosives, or any other devices to INTENTIONALLY inflict casualties to the civilian populace of any nation, whether they be in a plane, on a ship, on in their country of origin, or in another country as a tourist." describes the perception of the US military in many areas. (Perhaps incorrectly.)

Who can be tortured? Only those participants? Anyone with knowledge? Wives, daughters?

Are there limits? Do you plan to cut off a finger joint every minute while playing the theme to Jeopardy? Rape the daughter or mother?

[donaldo]

I would'nt rape the mother or daughter of a terrorist, but I'd kill them if it would save New York or London.

[Allen H]

You're seriously asking me that? With all that I've said here you think I would subscribe to that? Yes, participants I would use the means I detailed. Wives, daughters, hold them, question them, of course, OBVIOUSLY not rape or beat or abuse or cut ANYTHING off of them. THAT is what hussein's regime and the taliban did. What we put a stop to. The only people doing that are the people we fight. There is NO evidence that anything like that has been or is being done by the U.S. Military or it's intelligence community.

Anyone with knowlege that is not a participant, it depends on how readily they are cooperating. If they refuse to cooperate, in my mind, that makes them a participant and I would have no problem using the techniques I outlined, so long as there was a real and credible reason to believe they had critical information. If the information that person has saves lives, it is more than justifice. And if the intelligence retreived is good, but doesn't change any operations or stop any attacks, there is still nothing lost, because no real harm has been done to the terrorist captured. If it's a BIG emergency, like the theoretical terrorist with a ticking bomb somewhere, and you know he's the only one that knows where it is, and thousands or millions of lives are at stake, sorry, all bets are off. Anything goes. If that means spilling some of his blood or removing some digits, then sobeit. And would you care if by doing so your kids weren't statistics in a body count from a terrorist attack? I certainly wouldn't. I want my loved one alive. If some terrorist scum has to lose some fingers or take a beating to make that happen and stop the bomb, then that's fine with me. Someone else can do it, or I'll do it myself. Whatever stops the bomb.