I have a fairly flexible moral code as far as even torture is concerned... this goes beyond what I would consider appropriate in any sense of the word.

Do keep in mind that 9/11 doesn't even register on the atrocity scale when compared to what's been done by "soldiers of a legitimate state." If you would endorse torture to prevent another 9/11, why wouldn't you also endorse torture to prevent, say, another Hiroshima?

I think that in many ways this becomes the old Moral Absolutism versus Moral Relativism problem.

You can have a moral absolutist who says, "Harming another human is wrong, therefore we will not torture under any case." (A different absolutist might be more utilitarian in arguing for torture of one to save many, but you get the point- an absolutist has a position and a rigid interpretation of that position, and sticks with it)

You can have a moral relativist who says, "Harming another human is wrong. We cannot torture someone to collect information, but we cannot avoid collecting that information because if we avoid collecting that information it will lead to someone else harming more humans."

Two sides to the same moral problem. I tend to agree with the relativist view of the problem rather than the absolutist view; the relativist in this case is informed by the consequences of both action and inaction whereas the absolutist in this case only cares about the consequences of action. The solution? Absolutism will provide a solution because something is either right or wrong. So absolutism is easy, attractive. Relativism provides no clear solution, which is why many people prefer to reason in moral absolutist terms.

I object to torture on moral grounds. I also object to it on practical grounds. It doesn't work.

Since both of those objections point in the same direction, the solution is completely clear.

If something doesn't work, then don't do it. Hiroshima was an extreme example of that. By August the political establishment in Japan was split, with consensus moving rapidly to peace out of the war because by mid 1945 the industrial centers of Osaka and Tokyo were ruined by fire bombings. It just so happens that at the same time the government is moving to surrender, we use two bombs to vaporize more people.

"We need to use these bombs to end the war sooner." A fine argument to the intentionalist, regardless of outcome, but the consequentialist will have a problem with it because the atomic bombings did not lead to an early conclusion of the war, the fire bombings did.

They were so close to surrendering that the US had to drop two atomic bombs on Japan?

If torture could prevent the mass killing of innocent civilians, do you see any justification in it?

They had demonstrated the practice of mass killings of innocent civilians and expressed the desire to continue to do so.

> If you would endorse torture to prevent another 9/11, why wouldn't you also endorse torture to prevent, say, another Hiroshima?

Well, setting aside the moral equivalency of 9/11 to Hiroshima, I suppose if there was reason to believe there was a nuclear threat and there was access to someone for whom it was legitimately believed could provide details which would prevent it, employing torture would be morally and ethically justified.

That hardly makes them unique, or even different than previous enemies the US has faced, and dealt with detainees from, and studied the effects of interrogation, and concluded that torture is ineffective.

And, as the Senate report notes, every single one of the CIA claims that this torture was effective misrepresented the facts, either of whether information gained through torture had not independently been gained through other means, or whether the information gained was gained through the torture at all (often claiming information gained from a detainee before "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used was gained through those techniques, which is only plausible if the techniques are so effective that they send shockwaves back in time), or by simply misrepresenting the existence of threats that were supposedly disrupted when no real threat existed.

TORTURE IS NOT EFFECTIVE

This is hardly news, it has been known for a long time. CIA knew it before 9/11

OK, so nuclear attacks by soldiers justify it. How about conventional strategic bombing? Invasions? Exactly where and why do you draw the line, if you're not drawing it where you previously said?

I don't know where I would draw the line, but in the case of Qeada/ISIS, they are well across my personal fuzzy gray line.