In defense of Torture

Marc Thiessen, former Bush Administration speech writer and Op-ed scribe for the Washington Post, has penned an interesting piece on the release of the OLC (office of legal counsel) memos.

I say interesting because I do not feel sophistry goes far enough, and referring to someone as an amoral ass clown might violate blogger etiquette.

But this section in particular stood out in particular (emphasis added mine):

Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, "as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship." In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can -- and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that "Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable." The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.

This is perhaps one of the most disturbing and disgusting things I have heard. The actual articulation that, 'torture will liberate you', reeks of the sort of justifications we saw from Soviet Russia, China, and North Korea. How can we as a people be okay with that?

Whether actionable intelligence was gained or not, is not the question. The question is, what sort of people are we as a society? Are we the sort that condone torture, or sort that do not?

Ignorance is indeed Strength to these people.

-Cheers