THE METHODS OF TORTURE

A reader writes:

About the torture post, it amazes me that the dems are making such a big deal about the methods of torture. Those methods have enabled us to catch many terrorists and nobody dies as a result. My idea of torture is slowly sawing someone's head off while video taping the event (i.e, Daniel Pearl). That event was newsworthy for about 2 days...

I'm afraid I have to disagree. First, it seems to me that it's not the Dems who are making a big deal about the methods of torture. It was Rush who slapped his own face while on air to show that "that's not torture." In fact the primary defense of the Bush administration's is exactly what this reader expressed: nobody died, these actions leave no marks or permanent damage, etc. The Dems and their side of the debate are looking at history and seeing that we, the USA, tried and convicted a number of Japanese officers after WWII for torturing captured American servicemen by waterboarding. Great Britain prosecuted another group of Japanese officers who had tortured British soldiers using this technique, and sentenced them to death. Here is a Washington University Law Review article simply titled "Waterboarding is Illegal."

The reader's claim that "those methods enabled us to catch many terrorists" which would appear to be former VP Cheney's defense, has not yet been verified. I would only note that we've not seen any trials, let alone convictions, for the supposed plots revealed by enhanced interrogation techniques. If your response to that is, "we caught them and tossed them into Gitmo," then the circular reasoning bites it's own tail and we can never know or find the truth. I'm much more inclined to believe that the Bush administration would have trotted out the terrorists, captured before they could strike, to show the world, and the people here at home, just how tough they (the good guys) were. We shall see.

As to the tragic death of Daniel Pearl, we clearly know what that was. It's called Murder.