Over and over again, the "ticking time bomb" (hereby known by its acronym - the TTB) is brought up by Neocons and the right as a justification for torture. Or maybe not torture, but "enhanced interrogation techniques". It's torture, just like "collateral damage" is "civilian deaths". Slippery slopes always require an apex, or a nadir, and so for torture, the TTB (Ticking Time Bomb) is that shining point of light, the last recourse, as epitomized in that profoundly irresponsible show, 24. It builds on MacGyver, and the A-Team, and the Lethal Weapons, and the Diehards, and all those shows with quick-scrolling red LED rollouts racing to zero, as the heroes and heroines leap obstacles and race dashingly and fight villainy and argue quippically about which wire to cut.
Well, here are some simple facts, to use when debating with those remnant troglodytes, who argue earnestly and quixotically, for the Reality of the Ticking Time Bomb, and the Subsequent Need for Legal Torture. After the jump.
_Torture doesn't work. It can extract bad information from anyone, and some information from actual terrorists, but not as well as alternative, legal methods can. The facts are out there. Do the research.
_Al Qaeda and the rest of them don't use TTB's. They may use time bombs, but they don't tell anyone that they're ticking. Eg, the first bombing of the WTC, and Oklahoma City. Those were time bombs, but noone but the perpetrators knew that they were ticking. That's because the perpetrators didn't want anyone to stop them from exploding, they just wanted them to explode.
A Ticking Time Bomb requires:
1-a time bomb
2-communicating with authorities that a time bomb is ticking, and using that information to negotiate a deal.
Terrorists don't use TTB's, because they've learned that they're not effective negotiation devices. US authorities won't give concessions based on TTB's (or at least, there's no public record of them doing so), and so terrorists have reverted to a simpler method - time bombs. The goal of time bombs is not to offer any chance of them being stopped, but rather to explode them.
9/11 is a good example of a time bomb. Individuals were organized to create several large explosions, at a specific time. There was no deliberate communication beforehand between Al Qaeda and the US, stating, "We are planning to fly several planes into buildings on X day, at Y time, unless you do Z.". Why? Because Al Qaeda knew that they couldn't make the US do Z based on negotiation. They wanted the planes to crash into the buildings. Telling the US about it beforehand would only have undermined their plan. Al Qaeda doesn't use Ticking Time Bombs!
_There are better tactics available than torture. The terrorist cell that plotted the first WTC attack was dissected entirely with legal interrogation techniques. In hindsight, 9/11 could have been entirely prevented, by more responsible coordination within the FBI and CIA, in adherence with the legal interrogation and investigation techniques of the time. Essential information on Moussaoui's laptop remained unread until after 9/11 not due to a failure to torture, but due to a bureaucratic failure to investigate.
_TTB's are Hollywood. They go all the way back to when villains were tying women to traintracks. I defy PNAC to show me one women bisected by a choochoo train. And I defy them to show me one recent incident of a TTB. TTB's are a great plot device, because they allow the show to build up narrative suspense, contrasting the inexorable crawl of the TTB with the desperate efforts of the hero/es to stop the bomb from going off. Those who argue for TTB's are deeply deluded by Hollywood. They should have no seat at the table of rational, reality-based discourse.
_Even if torture were ever necessary, it doesn't have to be legal. In a situation where individuals were so profoundly convinced that they had to extract information from others by any means necessary, they would not need to question whether their actions had legal support! Imagine that you have suddenly found yourself face to face with someone who has the disarm codes for a nuke that will obliterate New York City 5 minutes from now. How seriously will you weigh your legal exposure, against the certainty that Manhattan is about to be destroyed? We don't need to legalize torture - if anyone is convinced about the imminent threat of a TTB, they're not going to be hindered by the Geneva Conventions.
The TTB argument is bullshit. It has been used as the argument of last recourse for years now, to defend an indefensible position - that torture should be legal. It's time to put the stake in this frivolous, cynically and irresponsibly manipulative, irrational argument, based on the delusional fantasies of that most profoundly left-wing enclave of fantasy - Hollywood.