My dear Chuckee I don’t care what a “large sector of Americans” thinks. I am a republican, a Christian and an American and my values supersede those of the mob. That alone makes torture, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, wrong.
If on a jury someone were accused of waterboarding Chuckee and keeping Chuckee up for days on end, I’d consider it torture and move to convict accordingly. Torture of enemy combatants or terrorists by Americans is nearly always wrong and becomes a recruiting tool for the enemy. The only exception is the rare “hot” need to know - it works mainly in the movies.
Your argument that the rarefied field of highly trained, objective and competent torturers allows for effective torture doesn’t hold water with the experts themselves or the science of interrogation. The article itself, along with objective fact, point this out. We had to waterboard KSM 183 times. If it were so effective shouldn’t it have worked much, much earlier?
Don’t get me wrong. Kill the enemy in combat, destroy his means of support, and eliminate their will to fight. Effective counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency techniques can include appropriate violence, just not torture. Long term the dangerous to liberty “War on Terror” will be won in the madrassas and mosques and even through liberty and econoomics and not on the battlefield. The idea of Islamic terrorism must be destroyed.
Conservatives shouldn’t shoot the message just becaue they don’t like the messenger. Torture is unAmerican. It isn’t effective, nor is it in keeping with our values. Cheney, who I otherwise like and admire, is wrong. Since the anti-torture movement has been compromised by liberal surrender monkeys conservatives shouldn’t be knee-jerk for it. We should regain the moral high ground and take the issue away.
The three fundamental questions are: 1. Is torture effective? 2. Is torture in keeping with American values and our Constitution? 3. Is it in our national interest. The answer to all three is “no”. Do the research yourself and you’ll come around.