From the Editor

Should the United States have a policy where torture is forbidden in any situation? In a “ticking time bomb” situation, where the mastermind is in custody, and thousands of lives are at stake, is it permissible to engage in torture? These questions have been debated by legal scholars, academics, and students currently enrolled in the UGA Speech Communication class “The Rhetoric of Torture.” Some legal scholars, like Alan Dershowitz, have argued that, like it or not, torture is happening. This being the case, it should be dragged out of the shadows and into judicial light and accountability through torture warrants. Other noted scholars, like Slavoj Zizek, have warned that normalizing torture through codification contributes to a collective desensitization process. Some have argued, purely on the basis of practicality, that information gained under torture is notoriously unreliable, so we shouldn’t do it. This is an unsatisfactory argument to us. It is tantamount to saying that if we could make torture reliable there would be no compelling reason not to do it.

There are no clear answers to these questions, and we offer them up for discussion to our readers. Are there convincing reasons to have a policy where torture is NEVER allowed, even if it would yield results, and even in a ticking time bomb scenario?