Comment 10 by Red Dog :

In reply to Comment6 by MMAtheist

Yes, I'm sure that I read the article. Harris says in this article "I believe that there are extreme situations in which practices like “water-boarding” may not only be ethically justifiable, but ethically necessary—especially where getting information from a known terrorist seems likely to save the lives of thousands (or even millions) of innocent people. "

That's the same argument that the Bush administration and its apologists (people like Dershowitz) use to defend torture. My arguments 1-3 apply:

Incorrect. They used torture to extract information just in case someone had information (in other words, torture to get a confession). That's not the same scenario at all as someone whom you already know has the information you're looking for before you start doing the torture (which is the scenario Sam Harris was talking about).

Please keep the two scenarios separate.