Crazy Chucky's way

What we've all been waiting for, The truth about Torture:

"For the purpose of torture and prisoner maltreatment, there are three kinds of war prisoners"

Who knew that prisoner maltreatment was an end in itself! The three kinds: 1.) whiteys like us, 2.) those who we'd really like to torture or at least take away their Korans, but really can't because it'd make us look bad and 3.) the almost limitless supply of "number 3" al Qaidans who we should copiously and repeatedly torture. Quick, hypothetical action sequence unfolding:

"Ethics 101: A terrorist has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City. It will go off in one hour. A million people will die. You capture the terrorist. He knows where it is. He's not talking."

What to do? A good thumb-hanging should do the trick:

"Question: If you have the slightest belief that hanging this man by his thumbs will get you the information to save a million people, are you permitted to do it?"

Thumbhanging. Must be one of those new techniques Mirengoff refers to when he writes "the ineffectiveness of the crude tactics of [McCain's] prison guards of 40 years ago does not demonstrate that the tactics available to us today are ineffective." Chucky further:

"And even if the example I gave were entirely hypothetical, the conclusion--yes, in this case even torture is permissible--is telling because it establishes the principle: Torture is not always impermissible."

See, because I've given you an entirely unrealistic example to which you could only respond with a trance-like chant 'torture, torture, torture!' we now must accept all sorts of torture under any sorts of circumstances. Why? Because I said so! How would this work? First, get trained, professional torturers to do the job:

"highly specialized agents who are experts and experienced in interrogation, and who are known not to abuse it for the satisfaction of a kind of sick sadomasochism Lynndie England and her cohorts indulged in at Abu Ghraib."

Torturer by day, family man at night...'daddy, what did you do at work today?' Secondly, these guys would need a torture warrant before beginning their dungeon-duty:

"They would be required to obtain written permission for such interrogations from the highest political authorities in the country (cabinet level) or from a quasi-judicial body modeled on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (which permits what would ordinarily be illegal searches and seizures in the war on terror)."

But here's where Chucky needs to make a concession for those occasional emergency situation where one might need to torture quickly:

"the interrogators would be allowed to act on their own, but would require post facto authorization within, say, 24 hours of their interrogation, so that they knew that whatever they did would be subject to review by others and be justified only under the most stringent terms."

Eh-hem, let me just interject a hypothetical: what if national security would be compromised to get the authorization within 24 hours? Or that next month, or ever?

And that's the problem with 'torture by the rulesbook' there simply are no rules in torture. You can't regulate torture to be as humane as possible. Societies that are best at torturing tend to be those who are ruled by vicious dictators where the general population is fairly inured to violence in general. It'll be awefully difficult to teach kids 'truth justice and the American way' except maybe sometimes when we feel we have to torture. Ain't gonna work. You'd think someone who's railed against liberal moral relativism would know better.