December 11, 2014--Torture

Regarding the Senate Intelligence Committee's report about the C.I.A. and its use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," this from Peter Baker of the New York Times--

The C.I.A. maintains that the brutal interrogation techniques it used on terrorism subjects a decade ago worked. The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that they did not. And on that, at least, President Obama is not taking sides. 

Even as Mr. Obama repeated his belief that the techniques constituted torture and betrayed American values, he declined to address the fundamental question raised by the report: . . . Did they produce meaningful intelligence to stop terrorist attacks, or did the C.I.A. mislead the [Bush] White House and the public about their effectiveness.

My view, controversial among liberals, is that this is in fact the fundamental question--does torture work?  

Not who said what to whom or informed or misinformed the White House and the public because if torture does lead to actionable intelligence that could save American lives--like knowing in advance about the 9/11 attacks--we should be having a very different discussion.

That discussion should be about, must be about, what techniques work and how to use them going forward in a way that, though ugly and brutal, is both justified and applied as humanely as possible. 

But even if there is no "humanely as possible" that should not thwart the use of these techniques. Confronting the brutal and ugly methods of the other side, the enemy, an enemy not playing by any recognizable set of rules, may mean that to defend ourselves against terrorist acts we too may need to employ the ugly. As indeed we are and have been doing from our origins as a country until this very day, often, frequently unacknowledged or publicly monitored. Like authorizing bombing raids and drone attacks that we know will kill children--"collateral damage."

And that discussion needs to be lead by an engaged President, not one, like Obama, who, as Baker reports, continues not to want to become deeply involved in daunting issues of contradictory complexity. In his White House the buck doesn't appear to stop with him. At times I even wonder if there is a buck.

If torture works, and though I doubt it does, we still need to boldly ask and answer that question because what would one prefer--not to torture someone who could tell us in advance of an about-to-occur attack on American or on our bases, troops, or citizens overseas; or should we authorize the use of effective techniques, no matter how loathsome, to forestall that.

To answer this authoritatively is way above my pay grade, likely yours as well; but how should we respond to this impossible question?