I'm skipping over a lot of previous posts because they go into too much detail over specific scenarios and most of them have the same problem: It is too easy to say waterboarding is good or bad, because the use of Waterboarding is modified with a specific target to make the good/bad point...
Or more simply:
Torturing terrorists is good.
Torturing newborn Babies is bad.
torturing the Guilty is good.
Torturing the innocent is bad.
Torturing Bin Laden is Good
Torturing American Soldiers is bad.

Someone mentioned that this is an argument of ethics, and that person is right.

Waterboarding is Torture, plain and simple. It doesn't matter who it is done to, innocent or guilty, it's torture.

The question isn't "How many lives does torture (Waterboarding) save," but rather "Under what circumstances should torture be allowed to be used?"

Now your ethics will dictate what you believe about the circumstances allowing the use of torture.

I, personally, am not against the use of torture. I think the threat of using torture can be just as effecient as torture itself for gathering information, a pshycological benefit of not banning the use of torture. However, I am against the use of torture aginst the wrong people. Torturing Bin Laden for information on Al Qaeda's plans - sure, go right ahead. Torture an American Citizen who knows nothing about Al Qaeda other than it was behind the 9/11 attacks - that's wrong (again, here the argument is modified by a specific target of the torture)

Why is "How many lives does torture save" the wrong answer:
The use of torture on the Columbine Shooters would have prented the incident and the death of their victims. The problem is that there was no knowledge of the plans until after they were executed. So how many students in how many schools over how many years would have had to have been tortured to prevent the incident? At what point does injustice of the number of wrongly tortured people outweight the justice of the saved lives? And, most importantly, who gets to make that judgement?

My opposition to Torture is based on the flaw in it's use. The idea of torture is sound, but the use of torture is the problem because people will utilize torture with as little as a suspicion of guilt or the hope that maybe some useful information can be gained.
The Japanese and Vietnamese tortured American soldiers with just the hope they may gain some useful information, and/or just to punish the Americans for opposing them. If that doesn't strike you as being wrong, then you must be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.

And the problem we have concerning the use of torture is not just how the determination of whom whould be tortured is made, but who determines how torture should be used? No one seems to know who has that power, or under what circumstances torture will be allowed.

And maybe we aren't supposed to know, keeping a pshycoligcal edge on our enemies that they may beileve we will use torture, even if we don't.

However, I have no faith in this administration, with it's track record, to be making the right determination as to whom should be tortured and whom should not.

Hell, all of us on the board could be one waggin finger away from being waterboarded ourselves - no matter how supportive of the administration we seem to be.

Afterall, Madman, that could be part of your Al Qaeda cover before you blow us all up in a attack with your Al Qaeda Buddies.

And that's how easy it could be to become a victim of torture.

Think about that for a moment.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, That we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the Survival and success of liberty." - JFK