OPINIONS THAT TORTURE WORKS NOT BASED ON EVIDENCE

Richard Cohen claims torture works. He writes in The Washington Post today that he believes torture is morally reprehensible but nevertheless he thinks it is effective:

"Yet the debate over torture has been infected with silly arguments about utility: whether it works or not. Of course it works -- sometimes or rarely, but if a proverbial bomb is ticking, that may just be the one time it works. I refer you to the 1995 interrogation by Philippine authorities of Abdul Hakim Murad, an al-Qaeda terrorist who served up extremely useful information about a plot to blow up airliners when he was told that he was about to be turned over to Israel's Mossad. As George Orwell suggested in "1984," everyone has his own idea of torture."

But what Cohen forgets or omits is that it works only if you grab the right guy. If you grab some guy like Christopher Hitchens or some other innocent party, thinking him to be a terrorist, torture does not work and will never work.

I say to Richard Cohen, you are no better in your ethics or in your intellectual analysis than the churchmen in the late middle ages who believed that the wrack and the test by water would make "heretics" confess. Out of 100 people subject to the dripping of the water, how many do you think confessed that they were in Satan's service? They all confessed!

So use torture with all 200+ inmates at Guantanamo and they will all admit that they were part of the Qaeda conspiracy.

And by the way don't stop with merely using water torture. Find that old branding iron and heat it very hot. Then resurrect the wrack, you know, the one with the pulleys. I am sure that you will obtain a lot of "useful information."

WATERBOARD ALL THOSE SAYING IT IS NOT TORTURE

Let's have a full and open investigation of how George Bush and Dick Cheney instituted a policy of torture on captives believed to be Qaeda supporters.

Recall that the Inquisition lasted about 400 years in Europe from about 1300 to 1700 when the leaders of the French Enlightenment exposed it and its shameful practices of torture to daylight.

Some of the very same methods used by churchmen in the Inquisition to extract confessions of devil worship and witchcraft show up in what we know about Bush and Cheney's policy of "harsh interrogation methods." Trial by water is a good example. Water has long been used to separate the good from the evil. Suspected thieves and robbers were thrown into the water in 13th Centrury England; if their hair stayed dry, they were exonerated. Officials poured water down the throats of suspects. Most confessed within a few seconds. Of course, even after receiving church absolution, these unfortunates were then taken and burned at the stake in the city center.

Of course water was not the only method. Churchmen used hot coals and the wrack to test the innocence of suspected heretics. Surely God would protect them if pure and innocent. Most were found to be allied with Satan.

Those who claim waterboarding is not torture should watch the video of Christopher Hitchens being recently waterboarded. Hitchens volunteered. He lasted about 20 seconds before he could not take any more. Better yet, defenders of waterboarding - Hannity, Thiessen, Cheney, Rice, Addington, Tenet, et al. - we should waterboard all of them and not stop unless they make a full and complete confession. First let's accuse them of (take your pick): supporting Al Qaeda, practicing witchcraft, planning to detonate a dirty bomb in NYC, being in consort with Satan, practicing socialism, or whatever. Let's see how much water they can stand before they confess.