I was completely appalled by the previous thread on the efficacy of torture.

Torture is inhumane, it is unreliable, it is ineffective, except in inflicting pain. You could get someone to admit to assassinating Lincoln with the application of torture. That doesn't make the information true. People will admit to anything just to make their tormentors stop.

Torture is also illegal. Because it is inhumane, unreliable and ineffective.

To say that there are no war crimes is to say that soldiers need not be held to any standards of behavior at all, nor need states at war. Massacre, torture, genocide and rape are not instruments of policy or means to achieve military objectives. They are abominations. To say we as a species have no power or right to prosecute war crimes is to say that we are helpless in the face of these abominations. You can accept that if you wish. I refuse.

The United States has no common culture, as our citizens come from everywhere. We have no common religion. We barely have a common language, though English is close because it's driven by economics. Yet we hang together because of a common philosophy articulated in a system of laws. If we turn our backs on the law, we will eliminate the bedrock of our nation and will begin, very slowly at first, to disintegrate. If we suspend any of our laws because of crisis, which we have done in the past, we will need to keep that in the forefront of our social consciousness, and make sure that there is not a single generation of Americans who grows up without a first-hand experience of living under those laws.

Regards--
Mary Anne