IS THAT A SERIOUS QUESTION?

The Republicans' dirty secret... torture (Johann Hari, 10/28/08, The Independent)

So what will be left of the Republican Party after next week's US election? The answer lies in the sands of Florida, where the sunshine-state Republicans have nominated an unrepentant torturer as their candidate for Congress. They view his readiness to torture an innocent Iraqi not as a source of shame, but as his prime qualification for office. This is American conservatism in the dying days of Bush – and it points out the direction that Sarah Palin would like to take it in 2012. [...]

There are no recorded instances of getting useable intelligence from torture – but even if in some freak instance after you have tortured a thousand Yahiyas you finally did, would it outweigh the damage of handing al Qaeda a thousand new recruits, vindicating Bin Laden's hate-talk and breaching the most basic moral codes?

After being water-boarded for less than three minutes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, operational leader of al Qaeda at the time of 9-11, couldn't wait to give us useable intelligence. Has there ever been a basic moral code that would forfeit thousands or tens of thousands of innocent lives for those three minutes? Morality forbids the use of torture as punishment, not as a means of interrogating the enemy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 28, 2008 8:19 AM