Torture Talk

Torturous Torture

The WSJ on the great Torture Debate. I am apparently the only blogger in the world who is not an expert on torture. Oh sure, my extremely limited audience allows me to live in ignorance but I have been confused about the vast wisdom that so many seem to have on this subject while I know so little.

And evidently my questions concerning the subject are beneath answering. Well, this article is a start.

So I keep asking why, if torture is so ineffective as so many people say with absolute authority, have so many used it for so long? Why has our government decided for years to accept the inevitable, that US soldiers if subjected to torture will break eventually?

Question one, does torture work?

There's also last week's ABC News report that 11 of 12 captured al Qaeda kingpins who have talked only did so after being waterboarded. This would appear to contradict so many glib suggestions, such as those in an open letter yesterday from Congressmen calling themselves the New Democrat Coalition, that such techniques "just plain don't work." The truth is that sometimes they do work.