Ticking Time Bomb Scenario

Conservatives constantly rely on the ticking time bomb scenario (TTBS) as the ultimate justification of torture. The issue has been brought up lately with the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. But I was specifically inspired by David Reinhard's column in last Thursday's Oregonian, which contained passages like this:

But is any and all waterboarding torture and therefore illegal? I don't think so. First, if all waterboarding is torture, why does the U.S. government waterboard its own folks in survival training programs? It doesn't gouge out trainees' eyes or rip out fingernails to get them ready to withstand the horrors of capture. Is it because waterboarding is safe and painless?

There you have it. We don't gouge out soldiers' eyes during training so we should institutionalize a practice used in the Spanish Inquisition. There are so many flaws in the logic of the TTBS and you never hear Democrats just come out and say it's a bullshit scare tactic that could never happen.

It will never happen. I feel silly even talking about it, but most Americans support torture based on fallacious arguments like this. If you do trap a terrorist in the TTBS, here are some problems you may encounter.

• Why wouldn't someone ready to kill thousands (and maybe themselves) just deal with a few minutes of pain?
  
• What incentive is there for a terrorist to tell the actual location of the bomb? If they beg for the torture to stop and say the bomb is in locker #3245 at Grand Central Station it's probable that they are using the tactic against you--telling you a false location to stop the torture and protect the location until detonation. I suppose you could get in your car, drive down, check it out, and drive back for more torture if need be.
• If you find out where the bomb is...so what? You've located a nuclear bomb that is going to go off in two minutes using torture. Congratulations. Take it all in as you realize that you have no idea how to dismantle a nuclear weapon.