Well, this raises all sorts of interesting thoughts.
1) Who said we had an image as a global 'good guy'?
Ask the average citizen of a Central American nation about the 'good guy' image of the US... Even if you remember Ronnie Raygun's illegal war on Nicaragua you only know a fraction of the story. We've been invading our neighbors at will, and toppling governments that were inconvenient to our wishes, for more than a century. Everyone else in the world know this. but for some reason Americans are utterly blind to history...
2) In comparison to what we've done all over the world for the Last century+ I don't think that drugging a terrorist is all that awful a crime. I'm a bit surprised they haven't done so already. Beating them up or otherwise applying physical torture would be useless, at best. It's very unlikely you'd get any information that way. If they're prepared to die in the course of their attacks they're not likely to be intimidated by physical suffering. But the US resorting directly to torture (as opposed to supporting proxy forces that use it) would be another step back from our professed principles. It would have very nasty implications for the rights of US citizens in the future, too. Would be much better if we moved closer to them by NOT supporting proxies who do this. Iran under the Shah, Israel and Saudi Arabia being prime examples. The Israeli double speak term 'pressure' used to gloss their use of torture has never fooled anyone.
Besides the difference in 'principle' from physical torture, the use of drugs is far more likely to get some results. All the various 'truth serum' drugs do is lower inhibitions (like alchohol) and make you more likely to say things that you would normally keep to yourself. Since these terrorists are generally Muslim fundamentalists who will not drink, at all, their experience with resisting these impulses will be nil. They'd better have good Arabic speakers, or whatever the terrorists native language is, when they do this, of course. The only legal problem I see with it is that you are not supposed to be compelled to testify against yourself. So, if they drug someone I guess they cannot use any information gained in his own trial. Big whoop if you stop another major attack. There's got to be another way to prosecute them.
It is 'new ground' certainly, and might require legislation to clearly define what circumstances allow the use of drugs, but as long as the right to refuse self-incrimination is preserved I think it's not that huge a challenge to our views of human rights. Torture definitely would be.
3) I'm not sure how this relates to the 'Global Policeman' role that the US has tended to assume for the Last 5 decades or so, actually. I'd think discussion of the siege of Afghanistan would be much more relevant to that. At least the current campaign is being conducted with some degree of restraint. Whether or not to drug terrorists for interrogation is a domestic legal issue.
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 22 October 2001).]
OT: meet the new global policeman
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