You know, if torture did work and we could say it worked 100 percent of the time, I still wouldn’t use it. The U.S. Army Infantry, when it goes out into battle and it faces resistance, it doesn’t come back and ask for the permission to use chemical weapons. I mean, chemical weapons are extremely effective—we could say almost 100 percent effective. And yet, we don’t use them. But we make this—carve out this special space for interrogators and say that, well, they’re different, so they can violate the laws of war if they face obstacles.
Military Interrogator: Torture slowed down effort to find bin Laden
The entire piece is short and worth reading. The interviewee explains:
1) Torture is useless for getting information.
2) Even if it were useful for getting information, it still put more Americans in danger.
3) Even if it made Americans safer, it still would still be evil.
As John McCain once said, “They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are.â€
