Now he is in American custody. What will happen? How do we get him to reveal his group's plans and the names of his colleagues? It will be hard. It will, in fact, be harder than it used to be. He can no longer be waterboarded. He knows this. He cannot be deprived of more than a set amount of sleep. He cannot be beaten or thrown up against even a soft wall. He cannot be threatened with shooting or even frightened by the prospect of an electric drill. Nothing really can be threatened against his relatives -- that they will be killed or sexually abused.Well, I guess what might happen is that interrogators will have to use methods that actually, you know, work. Which might lead to actual, you know, good intelligence...with the added benefit that such proper interrogation is not illegal, unconstitutional, or morally bankrupt. Kind of a win/win, don't you think?
No one can possibly believe that America is now safer because of the new restrictions on enhanced interrogation and the subsequent appointment of a special prosecutor. The captured terrorist of my fertile imagination, assuming he had access to an Internet cafe, knows about the special prosecutor. He knows his interrogator is under scrutiny. What person under those circumstances is going to spill his beans?Actually, Dick, I do. I believe that America is now safer now that we won't be torturing false answers out of people desperate to make the torture stop. I believe that America is now safer because our intelligence officers now know that they can no longer torture prisoners to death in ways that expose our own forces to torture and death in the event of their capture.
So, you know, there's one person for you. Why don't you go find another straw man to beat up, you sad, sad excuse for a pundit?
