The New York Times is leading with a piece about the arguments over whether the CIA's brutal interrogations worked. The story bears the following headline:
At Core of Detainee Fight: Did Methods Stop Attacks?
This is certainly a key question. But is it really at the core of the argument? Surely it's secondary. The primary question - the real core - is whether America should torture, under any circumstances. Although actually, that wasn't even a question until recently. It was assumed that torture was wrong. The brilliant Shepard Smith sees all this clearer than the Times.
That the Times is focused on whether torture works is a sign of Dick Cheney's unexpected success in defining the terms of the debate in the wake of the memos' publication. By intervening with his claims that there are unreleased memos detailing the program's accomplishments he's managed to get people arguing over torture's efficacy, rather than over what to do when government officials break the law and engage in what until recently were assumed to be inherently un-American activities.
"is whether America should torture"
The answer is no, that is why the Bush admin didn't torture. Nothing in those memos, including waterboarding as done by the CIA, is not even close to torture.
"under any circumstances"
The answer is a resounding YES, and a majority of Americans believe that under certain circumstances torture is acceptable.
Posted by: thelibslayer | April 23, 2009 at 07:41 PM