Torture

In a pathetic attempt to justify torture, some Bush administration officials have claimed that Bin Laden would not have been found if Americans had not used torture, a.k.a. “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

In the New York Times yesterday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sen. Carl Levin, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, both said the claim that torture led to Bin Laden’s death was “misguided and misinformed.”

What they ought to have said as a followup is this:  Torture would be wrong even if it had led to Bin Laden’s death.  Torture is something done by Nazis or the KGB or North Korea, and has no place in American policy--ever.

At this point some reader will probably say, “But suppose you caught a terrorist who was going to blow up the Superbowl, but he wouldn’t tell you where the bomb was hidden?”  I have two responses.  First, I actually think that is unlikely.  Second, if somehow such a scenario did occur, torture would still be wrong.  Torture cannot be morally justified.