And even if the situation did arise, there is no reason to think that torture would work. The guy could just lie, and in the time it took to confirm that he lied, the bomb would go off. There is a fundamental conflict between the hypothetical urgency of obtaining the information immediately, and having it be accurate.

The correct answer us that under the ridiculous scenario you described I would break the law to save thousands of lives. And I would resign and plead guilty to breaking the law and accept the appropriate sentence. The point being we don't write laws for fantastic circumstances. No one is above the law, especially the Attorney General or the President.

He said it is a 'red herring' and '[i]n the real world it doesn't happen.'"

I don't buy this argument. The fact that Al Qaeda is still out there, and they have planned an executed a lot of events, leads me to argue that the mere survival of Bin Laden and Zawahiri is a ticking time bomb. The red herring here is that torture is the only (or even best) option.

But, but, but ... I see it all the time in the movies and on the teevee!!!

Seriously, I'm with jayackroyd - if it really IS a time bomb that's ticking down, the determined person, who's probably by now said his/her final prayers and committed him/herself to martyrdom, can manage to hold out or tell a convincing lie until the bomb goes off.

The GOP openly WANTS torture now? Shit, the Bushies could have saved themselves a lot of time denying it.

I would've liked to see that S&M-tinged hypothetical turned on its head: Same ticking time-bomb scenario, in a town where Cornyn's loved ones are, and he cam save all of their lives...if he fellates the terrorist. A nice slow sloppy BJ from Cornyn - and ONLY Cornyn will save them all. What is HE prepared to do to save lives?

I suspect Cornyn would consider that scenario highly unlikely. But a scenario where we could torture the crap out of a terrorist subject to extract that same information - and we're ABSOLUTELY SURE the suspect has that info and we're ABSOLUTELY SURE the info we'd get from torture would be valid info - THAT'S much more plausible in the big strong manly eyes of Cornyn.

I read your article.The things you have written sound very sincere and nice topics i am looking forward to its continuation.

The real 'ticking time bomb' is the mentally and morally deficient group of senators and congressmen who are willing to continue discussions of whether the United States should engage in torture.

Other than that it does not work, it is morally wrong, it is illegal under American laws, and it is illegal under International Laws; torture is really great!

Where do all of these morons come from?

Here is the real fallacy of the "ticking time bomb" scenario made popular by shows like 24. In the real world the terrorist don't tell you that you have x amount of time before they bomb you. So if we don't even know an attack is coming how can we justify torturing someone in a ticking time bomb scenario. Its simple, we can't. I wish Holder had turned the situation around and asked him to explain how we would come to know of an impending attack in the first place and then just so happen to have anyone in custody that would know anything about it. It defies any kind of logic even I would think to the wing nuts.

If you notice you have yet to see an intelligence/military/law enforcement representative come forth and extoll the virtues of torture and how you can get credible information by doing it. Yet ass clowns like Joe Scarborough swear by its efficacy. Go figure.

I would've liked to see that S&M-tinged hypothetical turned on its head: ...

Exactly, slappy magoo.

The hypotheticals always assume we should do anything to save lives. But anything is never anything but torture.

"well, Senator, in your hypothethetical, I would be a fictional character, so I might as well take it a step further and use my powers of ESP to just read his mind...."

Big Bad John is pretty heavy into fantasy and fiction...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt05KC3Add8

The A.G. nominee replied, "I don't think I can do that."

"...because this is the real world, Senator, not an episode of '24'."

He *so* should have said that.

bruce rosner,

That is not the correct answer. The correct answer is we don't torture. It's unethical, illegal, and ineffective.

Why do you think you can beat the information out of people willing to suffer and die for their cause?

The sad truth is that there are people who simply enjoy torture. They want to torture. They get pleasure and satisfaction from torture. They get off on torture. If they are unable to engage in torture themselves, they get vicarious gratification from watching others engage in torture.

Cornyn may be one of them. Perhaps he tortured animals for fun as a child, as did George W. Bush. Such behavior has been identified as a clear indicator of the kind of psychopathology that leads individuals to enjoy torturing their fellow humans.

What Cornyn is really pressing Holder about is not a debate over effective and ethical interrogation policy -- he is looking for validation of his own deep urge to engage in torture.

Eric Holder's sane responses to Cornyn's rediculous, presumptive questions just added more bacon grease to the GOP's slippery, downward slope into irrelevancy.

Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) accusing Carol Browner of membership in the Socialist International and now Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) trying to impose Texas-style interrogation techniques on the Justice Department just puts the southwestern states more firmly in the Democratic Party's crosshairs. You can bet Texas Latinos see the writing on the wall (Alberto Gonzalez notwithstanding).

Keep up the good work, Senators!

You know, it's likely that an agent racing to defuse that ticking bomb in a major city would encounter some stop signs or red lights, and might also exceed the speed limit. It would be against the law, of course, for the agent to run those lights or drive through those stop signs, or go faster than 25 mph. Why are we coddling terrorists with our out-of-date traffic laws?

In other words, in the ridiculously unlikely scenario in which torture is used to get info on some sort of imminent attack, it's about as likely that the people responsible would later have to report to traffic court as be prosecuted. No prosecutor on earth would bring charges, and no jury on earth would convict. We don't refrain from criminalizing conduct on the theory that it might, in some wacky fantasy scenario, be necessary to commit that conduct. That's what prosecutorial discretion, and juries, are for.

Fact is, we have a perfect case already. During the Korean and Viet Nam, numerous captured airmen--among the physical and intellectual top echelon of fighting men--confessed to lies to stop or avert torture. They confessed to germ warfare, deliberate bombing of hospitals, targeting civilian centers, all lies, all to avoid torture or further torture.
Cornyn need only talk to his own colleague, John McCain, who has attested to that fact often enough. Or he could attend a PoW reunion and ask one of them to step forward and report about the information of true military value that they gave under torture.
Of course, all he's got is a goddam tv series, written by Hollywood hacks, starring a guy with his own graybar experience, all of whom would give up the Manhattan Project if you threatened to cut off their smokes.

slappy magoo:

I would've liked to see that S&M-tinged hypothetical turned on its head...

I've actually done that with wingnuts. Though I don't use the example you used because it's not "family friendly."

Instead I turn around and ask them: "Suppose you have a terrorist on the phone who insists that he has a bomb ready to go off within 24 hours. And he'll tell you where it is and how to disarm it. All you have to do is wire US $1billion dollars to a particular untraceable numbered Cayman Islands account now and allow him 12 hours to remove the funds. Would you do it?"

The answer is - invariably - something along the lines of "no, you never negotiate with terrorists." To which I point out that clearly there are some lines they are NOT willing to cross to save the lives of their fellow Americans so why isn't torture one of them?

I've pissed off a lot of wingnuts with that example, because they've got no response to it really. They know there are lines and they know that they're sadistic assholes. I have actually had one family member change his mind on torture after that debate, which made me happy because he's not one I'd generally peg as a sadistic asshole. (Family reunions are sooooo much fun in my family. Sigh.)

Big Bad John is pretty heavy into fantasy and fiction...

I saw that when it first came out and hoped it would win an award for most inadvertently hilarious campaign ad of 2008.

Thrax's comment too stupid for a reponse.

Scenes I'd like to see:

SEN. CORNYN: You must assume, Mr. Holder, that the only way to get the necessary information requires you to torture.

HOLDER: Your assumption, Senator, presumes that Western civilization has ceased to exist. I would like to hear your thoughts on that, if you would please.

If Holder did any prep at all for the hearing, he was ready with an answer to the ticking-time-bomb scenario. It was the one question everybody knew some Republican would ask him. The sorry part is that this was their ace-in-the-pocket sure winner question that they felt would get him to admit that sometimes torture is OK.

"...and '[i]n the real world it doesn't happen.'"

Well, you can't keep going back and forth between the real world and conservo-fantism in this discussion.

Don't you folks know that the notion that torture does not work is just a shibboleth of liberals?

The biggest problem with the analogy is that the US has a "torture program".

Those being tortured by Jack Bauer know it is a temporary evil, even if they face death.

Imagine discovering that you were to be tortured on a regular basis with the full knowledge and consent of a world super power, and everyone thought it was okay.

Now THAT is a torture that will destroy a person forever.

It is the torture of legal injustice, similar to slavery.

"Cornyn need only talk to his own colleague, John McCain, who has attested to that fact often enough."

I'd take that much farther. John McCain admitted to war crimes during torture. The fact that Cornyn doesn't think McCain should be hung for treason is a very clear indication of monumental hypocrisy. After all, if torture brings out the truth, then John McCain really is a traitor to his country. Obviously, I admire John's service, and I don't even remotely think he was a traitor. So maybe torture doesn't really work.

As for the ticking time bomb, that's just silly. If I'm a terrorist who planted a bomb that's going to go off in an hour in New York, what am I going to tell you? Torture me, and I'll tell you it's in Seattle. By the time we're done, it's already blown. And you wasted your time looking for a bomb in Seattle.

Cornyn can't help it - Holden was speaking English and Cornyn only speaks Texican.

For anyone interested, I thoroughly destroyed Cornyn here:
The Ticking Nutbag Scenario

Texas has much to apologize for - Bush, Cornyn, etc.
But we also produced Bill Moyers.

With the number of Republicans on the Hill so much reduced after the last election, the janitorial staff will have a lot less spoodge to clean off the walls after every episode of '24'.

It truly is an absurd question. If you say "yes I would torture to save ten thousand." Then why not torture to save 5000, or 10. Where do you draw the line? If it is ok to torture 1 to save 10,000 is it ok to torture 10,000 to save one?

Eric Holder's unequivocal responses to questions about torture yesterday ...
Unequivocal? He sounded like a candidate for a Supreme Court seat dodging questions about abortion, or a slick politician on Meet the Press handling gotcha questions.

The problem with torture isn't that it's ineffective, but that it isn't nice.

I would guess war crimes and torture occur in every war, and are usually informally tolerated, given the life and death passions involved, unless one is unfortunate to be the loser of a conflict. With some immodesty, some are calling a generation "the greatest generation," but there were probably a multitude of sins covered up at the Nuremberg kangaroo trials when the Germans were forbidden to use the defense that they were doing the same things the allies were doing.

Thank you Eric Holder. Could someone page Alan Dershowitz and show him this tape? Please?

Is there a way we can black out "24" from the broadcasts of Republicans on the Hill? Because, seriously, they really need to be weaned off that show. They take it WAAAAAAY too seriously.

Hey, I like "24" too, but here's the deal: ITS A FICTIONAL TV SHOW. A show where people can apparently get across major metro areas by car in under ten minutes. That's not reality.

"The problem with torture isn't that it's ineffective, but that it isn't nice." Luther @ 2:24 PM.

Well, you see, you blew your whole argument by trying to justify it with that last bit, the "it isn't nice" thing.
Humans are very result-oriented (something to do with survival, I understand) and are quite willing to do "un-nice" things if they think their survival depends upon it (see WWI, WWII, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution(s), etc). If torture were as all-fired effective as you and all the other Bauer-wannabees thought it was - IT WOULD BE LEGAL! That it isn't should tell you something about the validity of its "results" and the fact that you favor it tells eveyone a lot about you; probably more than you think or would wish.

What about the hypothetical situation where the terrorists secretly implant sensor devices in themselves, that would actually cause a ticking-time-bomb weapon of mass destruction to detonate by remote control if one of them is tortured. Wouldn't that be ironic. The act of torture actually causes the device to explode, in this hypothetical scenario. Maybe we shouldn't torture them after all.

Senator Cornyn,

Your daughter has been kidnapped by al queda.

Your CIA bursts into the room and there are five suspects. All deny involvement. Do you torture the 4 innocent ones too? Or does being in al queda mean we don't care?

Same scenario, all we have is a name though and the four men with our suspect are NOT al queda. Do we torture all 5 because to make an omelette you have to crack a few eggs?

Same scenario, but the five in the room are all 13-15 years of age.

Same scenario, but the room is in a Saudi school for diplomats and four international incidents may be created.

Answer ALL the questions please. Implausibility of the scenario is not germane.