Torture can never be justified!

Regarding the current discussion about waterboarding and other means of torture and inhuman treatments, following Bush's veto against a law proposal that would forbid the use of torture on prisoners that are suspected to be terrorists, the debate seems to have bloomed once again.

In the Swedish newspaper SvD, two different opinions where today published online. One arguing for allowing the US president (remark that this is an opinion in a Swedish paper, and even so only the US president is given this special right...) to, for 'our' survival, have the right to order waterboarding of a captured terrorist who USA (a person one wonders?) knows for 100%sure has the knowledge of when, where and how a bomb can be disarmed. The opinion also states that waterboarding is not torture!! Now, there are many comments to such an opinion article:

1. waterboarding IS torture! hmmm let's think about this. how would it feel to believe that you will drown, to be held under water until you start to suffocate and then in the last moment be saved... to be scared that your life will be taken and to suffer under water... how can this not be torture? torture does not have to give long-lasting visible scars. and even if you would agree that this is not torture (how you could ever do that?), then at least you have to classify it as inhuman treatment which is also illegal under international law!
2. who ever has 100% sure knowledge about anything??? seems more like a something that can be abused as in 'well, we kind of thought that we were almost 100% sure so we went ahead...'
3. scary thought: being at the hands of the decision of someone like Bush! huh

Luckily then that there was a second opinion in today's paper which, although not very well written, argued for waterboarding being torture and against the use of torture in any circumstances. The main argument here being that torture doesn't lead to valid information to stop a terrorist attack, that torture is usually counter-productive as it creates a more violent terrorists (since they cannot give up and cannot allow for the possibility to be captured, hence suicidal attacks becomes their best alternative) and since it creates a more dangerous situation for e.g. American soldiers, and since information given under torture is often made up.

I can agree with all those points. However, i must note that for me even more important than the above-mentioned reasons is the inhuman treatment that torture means which for the simple reason that it is torture should never be allowed! I am against torture like i am against the death penalty, not only because many innocent people are touched, but also because killing someone or torturing them is simply wrong. The second opinion concludes that torture was forbidden in Sweden already in the 18th century and that only when torture is forbidden do we have the upper hand against the terrorists. This I can indeed agree with. As with the final question regarding what the Swedish (and all other) governments has to say?

Luckily then that at least one person manages to write together a real good article about the subject, quite provocative as well. Tack Cordelia Edvardson.