On Torture
The New York Times reported yesterday that the White House fought for the CIA’s right to torture.
In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday in response to inquiries, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the grounds that it “provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy.”
The law would have:
…explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
and the President wonders that:
“Our public diplomacy efforts aren’t very robust, aren’t very good, compared to the public diplomacy efforts of those who would like to spread hatred and vilify the United States.”
Perhaps if we declared torture is wrong to be the official position of the US government?. One doesn’t need to be a moralist to say this. It’s well established that violence and torture will cause people to say what they think you want to hear.. Therefore, once you start torturing, you’ve created a scenario where you can never really trust information from that suspect. Much better to use psychology to convert a suspect to cooperation.
If we take strong moral positions, we will do better at “draining the swamp” than if we’re juggling legalisms. If we want to defeat terror, we can not emulate it.
[Update: a bit of clarification of my wording.]