Can torture be justified?
Shortly after the Taliban were routed in Afghanistan, President Bush warned of the major danger now facing the United States: “Shadowy terrorist networks.” Speaking to newly minted officers at West Point, some of them headed for combat in Iraq, their commander in chief said they must “take the battle to the enemy … disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.” More than ever, disrupting plans and confronting threats takes good military intelligence – much of it from captured sources. But reported abuses in US-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, focus attention on how harshly suspected enemies are treated in the process of finding out what they know. Use of torture (an imprecise term for extreme physical and mental duress) raises two fundamental questions: Does it work? That is, does it produce the “actionable intelligence” that might save lives on the battlefield or at home? And can it be justified on moral and ethical grounds? Such qu
