Brilliant WaPo Column: CIA Tortured Terrorists To *Help* Them, With Their Religion
Former "Bushie" chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen has written another opinion piece in this morning'sWashington Postand, like most WP columns, it is terrible. But lopsidedly so! It starts on the standard torture defense notes -- if torture was effective sometimes then how do you deal with THAT, libtards? Would you rather be dead? -- but then just has to go a bit further: apparently the CIA knows very much about the Muslim religion, and it turns out that they, the Muslims,wantto be tortured, and the interrogators are just trying to help them on their spiritual quest.
If you're in a hurry, just read the first and last sentences here and ignore the important logic in between.
Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, "as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship." In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can -- and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that "Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable." The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.
Oh my. If you believe that torturing people to stop big terrorist plots is acceptable, and that these techniques can sometimes work effectively, then fine! These are difficult questions, and much more complex than either side would care to admit! But this: "The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely." That's a really interesting road map we've drawn to someone else's spiritual liberation! Isn't it nice that the interrogators were only trying to help the terrorists with their Allah?