Liberty Maven

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Stare into the abyss and the abyss stares into you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

* Waterboarding and sleep deprivation turned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) into the C.I.A.’s best source on Al-Qaida.
* KSM then provided information that led to the arrest of Iyman Faris, an alleged Al-Qaida sleeper agent sent to the U.S. to plan attacks on New York landmarks such as the Brooklyn Bridge.

However, the New York Times (and many other sources) report that the men who interrogated KSM tell a different story…

* The C.I.A. officer who interrogated KSM, Deuce Martinez, said he used traditional interrogation methods, and not the infliction of pain and panic.
* And Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. agent who oversaw the interrogation of another major terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, says that Mr. Zubaydah talked before he was subjected to waterboarding and other abuse, and that “using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions.”

Whom should we believe — Mr. Cheney, or the agents who did the interrogations? The answer seems obvious. However, we believe there’s an even greater argument from principle to be made here. Even if torture were the most effective and reliable interrogation method possible, it would still be wrong to use it, both morally and practically.

* We must not become that which we claim to oppose.
* We must set an example for the world of how people should behave.
* And we must count all the costs and risks to which we subject ourselves when we violate our own most sacred values.

The whole world now knows that the supposed “land of the free and home of the brave” . . .

* Kidnaps people and sends them abroad to be tortured
* Holds people in captivity without due process
* Practices acts of torture for which it has prosecuted others
* Does not practice what it preaches

Our hypocrisy has undoubtedly recruited far more terrorist candidates than have ever been caught by using torture. The Cheney-Bush policy was, and is, self-defeating, even if it could really be demonstrated that torture occasionally results in useful information. Sadly . . .

Even though President Obama promised us change, we haven’t seen much in the way of meaningful change. The new policy of ”Indefinite Detentions” is actually worse than before.

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