The topic for this debate is: ”Torture Is Excusable If Information Received Saved A Human Life(s).”

bodrul will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
nyk537 will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

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As always, I would like to start by giving a well deserved thank you to MemoryShock and the rest of the ATS debate team for giving us this wonderful opportunity. I’d also like to wish my opponent, bodrul, the best of luck in what is sure to be a great debate.

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We find ourselves today once again debating the morality and justification of torture. I believe my opponent has done an acceptable job of laying out some specific examples of torture and the general ways it can be used in today’s world. The exact nature of the debate today is whether or not torture is excusable if information received saved a human life(s). To be sure this is a very interesting question, and one that poses many significant issues for much of the world. Through the course of this debate, I will show unequivocally that the willing torture of another human being is not only inexcusable, but downright immoral.

Let’s begin by examining some scenarios where some may feel that torture is acceptable. In the examples my opponent has provided us, it would seem as though it is acceptable to torture those who seek to do us harm. It would also appear that we should have no problem torturing those who have already done us harm in order to prevent others from doing the same. However, is torture really the solution?

I would argue that engaging in an act such as torture, only serves to lower us to the level of evil that we consider our enemies to have. Without any hint of justification or defense for the rotten scum who seek to inflict harm on innocent lives, I would suggest that by torturing those individuals, we are no better then they are. The goal of terrorism in this world is to inflict terror, and in some cases kill and destroy everything in its path. The goal of torture on the other hand, is to inflict such pain and misery on an individual that they hope and pray for the relief death will bring. I ask you now, does this sound any better?

Furthermore, I would ask of you what we believe gives us the moral authority to justify our torture of our fellow human beings? Do you not think that the evil doers who seek to kill innocent people have justifications for their actions as well? I would suggest to you that not only do they have justification for their actions, in many cases, they honestly believe what they are doing is right. So how do we tell ourselves that what we are doing is right, and what they are doing is wrong?

A more detailed look into the question posed brings us to the assumption that by torturing someone for information, we are able to save live(s) through the prevention of further atrocities. How do we reach this conclusion though? Who is to say how many lives are saved because of the information given by a terrorist or criminal? How are we to know that we are given accurate information that prevented anything? It seems to many of us that the justification of saving lives is nothing more than an attempt to cover up the ugly truth about what torture truly is.

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Answers to Socratic Questions:

In just 2000-2008, 6000+ were killed in terrorist attacks. If torture could have saved the lives of all of them or a fraction would it have been worth it?

I don’t believe you can prove to me or anyone else that torture would, or could have saved any of them.

Would you agree to those caught in the act being tortured to get to his/her associates?

Again, we reach a point in which the burden of proof is on you to prove to me that torture could or would enable us to do so.

Where would you draw the line for those that should be protected from torture?

The line I draw is very simple and clear. I do not support torture, but I fully and completely support the death penalty, and the killing of our enemies in combat. If a terrorist is caught and convicted of the murder of innocent people, they should expect to face severe consequences. Torture, however, is not one of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a bit confused by my opponent’s previous statement. It seems as though we are in agreement much more than disagreement. Take for example the following statements:

My opponent is correct on the line we would be lowering our standards

My opponent has hit the nail on his last statement…how can we trust a terrorist…the simple answer to this is no (we can’t)

There must be a reason for this agreement wouldn’t you say?

Moving on, I would like to take a deeper look at some of the issues raised in my opponent’s previous remarks. In the initial paragraphs, I found a comment that stood out like a sore thumb to me.

Sometimes one must become what he detests and hates to do what is right

I couldn’t disagree more. While this may hold true for Batman, this isn’t the case in our world today. I would argue that in order to truly preserve and protect, we must stand by our principles and fight for what we believe is right and just. This includes giving what I would consider the privilege of letting terrorist scum die a quick and just death.

My opponent goes on to continue the argument that torturing can lead to catching “bigger fish” and preventing further atrocities. Quite honestly, I don’t buy this argument one bit. As you have been shown, my opponent even agrees with me that…

the intelligence extracted from terrorists can’t be 100% accurate

So how could we ever be sure that torturing another human being could ever lead to the prevention of further attacks, thus saving innocent lives?

My opponent would argue that because terrorists generally work in a command structure, that any given terrorist would know in depth information about the inner workings of the organization. I wonder if my opponent honestly believes this? Who is to say that the terrorist is not just a simpleton who was recruited by these terrorists with no information of what he was really doing, or who he was really working for? Who is to say that the person we torture won’t give us false information, or give us names of innocent people to go after?

Taking this into consideration, I fail to see how my opponent could honestly believe that torturing anyone could ever lead to reliable information.

As I have already addressed every issue given to me by my opponent, I will make this short and move directly to the question posed to me.

If torture can (and did) save lives and is used against those that are proven to be a threat then wouldn’t it be justified?

The simple answer is no.

I realize this is an attempt to bait me into saying that saving innocent lives is not worth it, but that will not work. Unfortunately, all that my opponent has to work with are if’s and other hypotheticals. It can not be proven to me that torturing others will lead to the prevention of anything. On top of that, I would suggest to you that we already have all the means necessary to prevent and retaliate against any attack we could face. The United States and the countries that stand beside it constitute the greatest force the world has ever known. I do not believe for one instant that torture should ever be required to obtain information that we could not get through some other means.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a bit confused by my opponent’s previous statement. It seems as though we are in agreement much more than disagreement. Take for example the following statements:

There must be a reason for this agreement wouldn’t you say?

My opponent fails to mention or seem to look at my sentences that follow the agreement, anyone would say torture is a Bad thing and its lowering our self’s to their standards.

My task in this debate is to show how it’s a necessity and sometimes it is required of us to do something we as people do not like.
On his response to

can we trust terrorists and criminals, I said no, not 100%
my opponent has taken this and shown that I have made it out like they can’t be trusted at all for the information they provide.

I would like to show this in a quote from my previous post

The simple answer to this is no,
the intelligence extracted from terrorists cant be 100% accurate as the chances are they are some low ranking person. But at the end of the day whatever information they provides takes us one step closer or higher in the chain.

If I left that question with just my simple no, then my opponent would have been correct.

Now to the rest of my opponents’ reply.

He mentions batman and the fact that I used

Sometimes one must become what he detests and hates to do what is right

Funny enough I wasn’t thinking of Batman when I typed that up
but if I were I would have used the actual quote from the movie

Batman: He didn't, I killed those people. Gotham needs their white knight. Sometimes people deserve more than truth, sometimes they deserve to have their faith rewarded.
Lt. Gordon: We'll have to hunt you.
Batman: You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me, you'll set the dogs on me. But that's what has to happen.
Gordon's Son: Batman! Batman! Why is he running? He didn't do anything wrong.
Lt. Gordon: Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him, because he can take it. He's not a hero, he's a silent guardian, a watchful protector...a dark knight.

My sentence that I typed reflects also reflects on the first part of my opponents reply where I agreed with him on the fact that we would be lowering our self’s to their level.

My opponent has gone into the delusion that i agree with him that bigger fish cannot be caught
using smaller fish.

and that (what he seems to make it out to be) all terrorists structures work in a way that they only hire or get people lower down to do their dirty work. Or they only work alone.

One would presume when someone is given a task or job to do they don’t just instantly get the job plan in their heads without having someone give it to them in some form or the other from someone one step higher than them in the chain?

I didn’t know saying something isn’t 100% makes it 100% that I agree with my opponent

So how could we ever be sure that torturing another human being could ever lead to the prevention of further attacks, thus saving innocent lives?

As I said in my previous reply which my opponent seems to have alluded,
by getting intelligence on attacks or any small information on pending attacks gives the people that are a target a higher chance of being warned and taken to safety.

every second or minute that is gained is pottential life saved.


My opponent has gone into assuming that I believe that a lower ranking terrorist would know the in-depth working of his command and give 100% true Intel.

In my previous reply I have said it’s not 100% accurate and the only way to get through the ranks of an organisation is to go up the chain.
My opponent has yet again come up with the following

Who is to say that the terrorist is not just a simpleton who was recruited by these terrorists with no information of what he was really doing, or who he was really working for?

That simpleton who doesn’t know what he is doing will have been recruited by someone, In the first place.

Now if this person was a simpleton and didn’t know what he was doing then where would torture come into it? They would freely give information since as you said they are simpletons with no idea of their actions. They can help find the person who recruited them and work from there.

in most scenarios they cant hire simpleton (as my oppenent put it) as they require days or even months of planing to get their job done.
to do that would require a command structure and a small/alot of knowlidge of their group for good comunications between them)

Taking this into consideration, I fail to see how my opponent could honestly believe that torturing anyone could ever lead to reliable information.

I would like to direct everyone to my previous posts and responses in this reply on why I believe it would save lives in the end.

I realize this is an attempt to bait me into saying that saving innocent lives is not worth it, but that will not work.

Believe what you want, this is a valid question and if my opponent wants to dance around the questions with the veil of baiting then it’s his choice.
The question was

1. the debate title is Torture to save lives.
if torture can (and did) save lives and is used against those that are proven to be a threat then wouldn't it be justified.

For the Means to justify the results.

My opponent has replied with this as well which stands out

I would suggest to you that we already have all the means necessary to prevent and retaliate against any attack we could face. The United States and the countries that stand beside it constitute the greatest force the world has ever known.

I would happily agree with this if this topic was about defending against countries as a whole but
terrorists work in groups and sometimes on their own with no home country of base.

They operate freely on a global scale where travelling from one country to another is a stone’s throw away.

So no matter how many state of the art sonar’s and radars other gadgets you put in place it won’t detect them so easily as we in Europe, the US and other western countries advance in technology terrorists also advance in methods and ways to elude the system.

The topic is about If torture could save lives
I am merely showing everyone that in some ways it can save lives. And that sometimes its required of people to do what is required of them, (don’t bring in Batman again) as that sentence reflects on the real world aswell.

I would like to ask the following question

1. How would you get information from a terrorist,
Without any form of physical,mental abuse or drugs?

I would like to take a moment to apologize for my delay in returning to this debate. I was away on an important business matter this weekend and my opponent refused to permit an extra grace period. As such, I will be encompassing both of the previous replies in this post. Moving on…

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Ladies and gentlemen of ATS, I am struggling a bit here to find a starting point for this section of the debate. My opponent’s previous post has provided us with no new information regarding the subject matter. Instead, we have seen regurgitated material in response to each of my points.

As it stands now, my opponent has continually argued that torture leads to information that can prevent future attacks and saves lives. Yet, we have seen no proof of this presented to us. My opponent did provide some sources in which foiled plots were mentioned, but no specific instances of information being drawn from torture are given. Instead, the only link between the two provided is that…

a majority of the countries do use torture and it’s a fact

That may be, but is it also a fact that they use it effectively? Or that they use it in a way that has prevented attacks or saved lives?

Not that my opponent has shown. In fact, upon closer inspection, my opponent has only served to damage their argument even further.

My opponent has made mention to intelligence gained from countries that use torture, as you can see above. My opponent even goes so far as to admit that countries such as the US and UK have prevented attacks and saved lives through the use of their intelligence reports. What my opponent fails to do though, is to draw a correlation between these intelligence reports and torture.

Granted some of these countries may be known to use torture, but my opponent has not been able to link the two in any instance. Instead, we can just as easily assume that this intelligence was gathered through other means, such as electronic eavesdropping, spies, or any number of non-torture methods. So once again, we are left with no proof that torture leads to anything positive.

I would now like to jump ahead and provide my opponent with an answer to the Socratic Questions posed to me.

How would you get information from a terrorist

My answer to this question may come across as a bit surprising to some. In short though, I am not interested in getting information from terrorists. What I am interested in is preventing terrorists from attacking in the first place, and completely destroying them if and when they do.

One of the points we have failed to examine in this debate, is why torture would need to be used in the first place. For the purpose of this debate, we would only need to use torture to extract information on someone who has already committed an act of terrorism. What I would be concerned with, is preventing terrorism in the first place.

Now, I ask you in regards to my position. If we can use intelligence and other means to prevent terrorist attacks, could we not also use those same methods to stop future attacks and save lives? For what reason are our methods good enough at first, but not good enough if we catch one of these scum alive?

As far as I’m concerned, we can dispose of the terrorist and move on to catching the rest of them on our own terms. Torture, as I have shown, should never be one of those terms.

Ladies and gentlemen, my opponent has attempted to make one last push here to try and divert your attention from the previous posts. In the closing statement, we can find countless accusations that I danced around questions, when in fact I responded very directly to each and every one of the Socratic Questions posed to me.

My opponent also tries to drive the point home by repeatedly saying that they have shown that torture has been used to prevent an attack, yet has given us no evidence of this. We have seen link after link confirming that countries do in fact use torture and statement after statement saying that this has saved lives. However, we have yet to see a single link or case in which the use of torture was directly linked to any lives saved.

On top of this, my opponent attempts to mislead you about what was said in this debate. The claim is made that I have said that terrorists “don’t have anything of value to say or have any intelligence that can be used.” This statement is patently absurd. What I have said is that terrorists don’t have any information available to them that can’t be obtained through means other than torture.

My opponent makes the claim that they have shown that torture is a necessity, when in fact they have done no such thing. What we have seen through the course of this debate is that there is no real evidence to suggest that torture is effective on any level. What we have seen is that torture only serves to humiliate and destroy.

Friends and colleagues, do not fall into the trap my opponent has attempted to set with this debate. Let us take a step back and examine the facts before us on this issue. We have seen no conclusive evidence that torture can lead to saving lives. We have seen no irrefutable proof that torture has been used to prevent terrorist attacks.

The fact remains unchanged though, that torture is a terrible and inhumane practice that stands to benefit no one. We have advanced as a society beyond this barbaric practice and have every means necessary to protect ourselves and our friends without the use of such things.

In conclusion, I’d like to extend one last thank you to MemoryShock and the rest of the ATS debate staff for hosting this tournament. I’d also like to thank bodrul for putting up a good fight and allowing us all the privilege of witnessing another great ATS debate!

Look forward to seeing you all again,

nYk

An excellent Fight by both on a difficult subject.

nyk537 will advance to the Third Round.

I would judge nyk537 as the winner.

Having majored in philosophy, I have actually heard this debate many times. It is pretty classic in ethical or moral theory.

bodrul's first major error in presentation was to bring the debate to the "real world." If he had chosen a very tight theoretical case, and tightly tied down all the circumstances, he could have presented a very good argument for torture.

He did not. He tried to build a case for it using real events, and real instances of torture.

Unfortunately, this made his case very, very difficult to plead unless he could have shown specific instances where torture led to the prevention of some act that would have taken lives. Because it is nearly impossible to prove something that didnt occur, would have occurred without the information gained from torture , his case was damaged from the start.

Even the quote he brought in as a "proof" of his point that torture was a successful means of providing intelligence, didnt actually mention the intelligence gained, and in fact, in tone it appeared to be a criticism of the use of torture.

www.amnesty.org...
Torture and other ill-treatment in Algeria continue to be perpetrated with impunity in cases of arrests and detentions of individuals who are suspected of terrorist activities. This report is based on dozens of cases of torture or other ill-treatment by the DRS (Department for Information and Security

Even without reading the linked information, one can clearly see that this is not supportive of torture. Amnesty international is not known for their support of the use of torture.

He also conceded that the information gained through torture could not be deemed reliable, and he never really refuted nyc537's argument that the people being tortured may not even have any information to give if they were low ranking.

In just a pure critique of his case building skills, he seemed to think that making an assertion was equivalent to making a case. He would make a statement, ie;

sometimes one must become what he detests and hates to do what is right
to preserve and protect.[/bodrul]

and then he says in the same post;

2. i have drawn the line were i believe torture is a necessity and why it is required for good men and women to put them self s to a lower standard to save others.

However, he actually did not ever show us why that is the case, only that he said he believed it was. He didnt even really give a good account of his own reasoning.

In fact that is the main problem with much of the argument on bodruls side, he made assertions, and then did not provide argument (or links) to support or even explain himself.

One of his arguments for torture seemed to be, "torture isnt that bad, really." He kept trying to assure the reader that torture isnt all physical pain,

Torture doesnt and never is always physical :@@;
bad music will break the saine of us in seconds or minutes.

but......it is torture.. He seemed to be saying that psychological torture was more humane, however, he simply did not sell the idea of a "kinder, gentler torture." By definition, torture is not kind. It just was not a workable tactic.

In general, his argument was disorganized, and poorly presented. I completely overlook the grammar and punctuation issues, as he may not be a native English speaker, and I did take that into account, but even given that there was no focus, no step by step case building that would guide the reader through his argument.

He would have been much wiser to stay in the theoretical and focus on the one vs many aspect.

nyc537 obviously has to lose points for missing a post, however, bodrul did nothing with the extra post he had to build his own case OR to really tear at nyc537's. In practical terms, no advantage was gained by bodrul in that extra post.

nyc537's case was organized, clear, and he was very good about pointing out the problems with bodrul's argument.

In my opinion, it was a pretty cut and dried win for nyc537.

I want to thank bodrul and nyk537 for an interesting debate and found that you both made some very valid points. Though I did find some key points missed on both sides of the argument the topic was well covered.

One point lacking was the torture of innocents that get swept up in battles mistakenly but are treated as combatants, and the suffering many children have endured to gain information from them or a family member.

I found myself scrolling back a number of times to ensure I understood the full grasp of a point being made by both of the debaters and read through the entire thread fully at least twice.

My decision goes to nyk537 because I feel many of the member's points were very valid and presented in a clear and concise manner.

But again, thank-you both for your participation.