Still Not Good Enough
Stuart Taylor Jr.
If the US does not acknowledge the possibility that yes a ticking time bomb scenario, however unlikely, must be planned for we are doomed to repeat the failures of Gitmo and Abu Gharib. Banning torture outright, but still allowing coercive interrogations and torturing individuals in certain extreme situations without oversight from congress or the judicial branch is absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it to, either ban torture outright in all circumstances and threaten criminal prosecution for any and all violators (even in "ticking time bomb scenarios") or craft guidelines, regulations, and oversight committees that will allow torture for suspects whose knowledge say, can prevent a nuclear attack on a US city, and spell out when precisely torture is acceptable and when it isn't.
I don't think so. First, McCain seems to acknowledge that in an extreme (and highly improbable) scenario, such as the capture of a suspect who is known to have a nuclear bomb hidden in New York City, the power of the commander-in-chief would trump any congressional ban. "You do what you have to do," McCain told Newsweek. "But you take responsibility for it."The McCain amendment's wink-wink proposal-condemn torture unilaterally, but allow it for the "ticking time bomb scenario"- won't change a single aspect of United States interrogation methods. Torture is already banned as a form of punishment or interrogation in the United States, and the proposed amendment only acts to reaffirm an already existing ban. The detainees at Gitmo and Abu Gharib were not subjected to waterboarding and other forms of torture because they are currently allowed, no they were tortured because nguidelineses or regulations exist for the use of coercive interrogations or torture.
More important for real-world purposes, the McCain amendment and the 1994 Senate reservation allow for fairly rough interrogation of suspected high-level terrorists. As noted in my November 12 column, the "shock-the-conscience" test codifies the sensible principle thatÂshort of tortureÂthe law permits more-coercive interrogation methods as the importance and urgency of the information sought increases.
If the US does not acknowledge the possibility that yes a ticking time bomb scenario, however unlikely, must be planned for we are doomed to repeat the failures of Gitmo and Abu Gharib. Banning torture outright, but still allowing coercive interrogations and torturing individuals in certain extreme situations without oversight from congress or the judicial branch is absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it to, either ban torture outright in all circumstances and threaten criminal prosecution for any and all violators (even in "ticking time bomb scenarios") or craft guidelines, regulations, and oversight committees that will allow torture for suspects whose knowledge say, can prevent a nuclear attack on a US city, and spell out when precisely torture is acceptable and when it isn't.
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