Your first point is moral equivalency. I you see the Nazi's bombing Britain and getting tortured the same as AQ torturing, then you have a lot of analytical work to do. Countries under attack by dictators and terrorists would have the moral high ground for my money.
“Countries under attack by dictators and terrorists would have the moral high ground for my money.”
Interesting that two of the countries that have had the most terrorist attacks, England and Israel, both outlawed torture.
Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it, I think there’s not too many of us who would be upset at an AQ terrorist being tortured to find out the bomb that’s about to go off. The more difficult problem is, how do you make sure that it’s only AQ terrorists who are being tortured? I mean, it’s not like they are given a public trial before they are tortured. We are relying solely on the judgment of the people that the president places in charge as to who will be tortured and who will not. Depending on the person or persons, this could be pretty restrictive with high standards of proof and danger to the public, or it could be fairly whimsical and subject to all kinds of abuse.
For instance, does the prospect of the president (Obama or some future America-hating president) having the power to lock up anyone with no rights to be charged with a crime, no rights to a lawyer, no rights to confront witnesses, and also to hold them for an indefinite number of years, and subject them to “enhanced interrogation techniques” for the duration cause you some concern? We are not far from that point today. Perhaps the only offense might have been having the temerity to claim the president was wrong.
I guess the main difference between us is that you feel the danger from terrorism is so great that we can ignore the dangers of losing our freedom from within. I disagree. I think most tyrannies are imposed from within, rather than externally.