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Obama had the audacity to say, 'I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States.' Ladies and gentlemen, torture in the United States has always been illegal.

This is not to condone torture, which is still prohibited by the Torture Convention and federal criminal law.

America does not torture. We never have, and we never will.

If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice.

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy.

If you are sentenced to torture for a crime, yes, that is a cruel punishment. But the mere fact that somebody is tortured is - is unlawful under - under our statutes, but the Constitution happens not to address it, just as it does not address a lot of other horrible things.

Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean?

We do, and there is a law in the United States - the Torture Convention - that prohibits the United States from deporting an individual to a country where there is a reasonable expectation that he will be subjected to torture - physical, mental or otherwise.

Torture produces unreliable evidence and therefore doesn't achieve and protect anybody. Torture corrupts those who are doing the torturing.

President Obama was right to ban torture, but the public must understand that this decision carries a potential cost in lost information. That's what makes it a moral choice.