Ethics

Krauthammer Defends Torture

By Ed Brayton

Charles Krauthammer has a column in Washington Post that gets it exactly wrong on the subject of torture. He calls torture an "impermissible evil" but still finds two situations in which it is, in fact, permissible. One is the "ticking timebomb" scenario, which has never actually happened outside of a movie. Here's the other:

The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. (One of the "torture memos" noted that the CIA had warned that terrorist "chatter" had reached pre-9/11 levels.) We know we must act but have no idea where or how -- and we can't know that until we have information. Catch-22.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).