Reader Response -- Torture at the Dawn of the 21st Century

Samadi writes:

"In addition to the ethical ramifications of torture,
the practice of torture is an albatross to the torturers
ultimate goals. For instance, when Americans torture
a foreign soldier, then foreign soldiers will have little
to deter them in breaking the codes of the Geneva
Convention, and our soldiers will be tortured.
If a person is tortured long enough, they will eventually
tell you whatever you want. This potentially imprisons
the innocent, while ceasing the search for the guilty.
In the end, torture is inhumane and ineffective.
Additionally, Americans now lose the moral superiority
we had. Only an American President could have stood
up at the wall in Berlin and proclaimed it evil;
we were the land of rightousness. This hampers that view."

Thank you for your comment, Samadi.

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Readers may be interested in the relationship between
torture, pain, and creativity in the writings of South
African Nobel Prize laureate (2003) J.M. Coetzee.
For those who don't know his works, I suggest starting
with The Life and Times of Michael K (1983).