Can torture ever be justified?

I don't think so, suprising people with kindness is supposed to actually be more effective for obtaining information anyway.

The right to not be tortured should be upheld by any defender of liberty; the day our nation is willing to breach this fundemental liberty, we stop having any cause to fight for.

This is the line taken by alot of people. There is the ticking bomb arguement though. A person has placed a bomb in the middle of a city and you have a limited time to get the information before it goes off. Do you torture them to find it in time? or do you let it go off?

Am doing a project on torture for one of my uni modules. Give me your opinions on whether torture can ever be justified.

You try and extract the information through other means: and ultimately have to let the bomb go off.

That's not a flaw in the British government, it's terrorism in the wrong. To not drag ourselves down to that level is the best thing to do.

Yes it can. Stress positions and Waterboarding were used against enemy combatants in Guantamano Bay.

Yes it can. Stress positions and Waterboarding were used against enemy combatants in Guantamano Bay.

You try and extract the information through other means: and ultimately have to let the bomb go off.

That's not a flaw in the British government, it's terrorism in the wrong. To not drag ourselves down to that level is the best thing to do.

You'd let possibly hundreds of people die for the sake of not wanting to hurt, not kill, one single person?

When the Gestapo used these methods, it was classed as torture and unjustified. Why was Mr. Bush doing it any different?

Jack Bauer. My hero. Gets the job done, no mess and no fuss.

What you must understand is that there is a difference between very physical torture for sadistic purposes (Gestapo) and "stress techniques" adopted by the White House. These stress techniques are necessary to gleen information from enemy combatants who want to kill millions of people, and at the same time, they are not inhumane like techinques of the gestapo.

How else do you suggest interrogating a guilty person who is refusing to co-operation? There has to some pressure you must apply in the form of stress techniques.

Guantamano Bay was a disgusting breach of the contitution, it may as well have been run by Hezbollah or any other scum - I don't see how the horrifically unjustifiable can be used as proof that torture is acceptable.