Torture: Terror Prevention vs. Criminal Punishment

-->

by Mark Adams

One completely ignored distinction in the vitriolic rhetoric accusing President Bush of using Monica's Closet for his thumb-screw collection, and saying the Democrats (along with some select GOP Senators and distinguished military leaders), are giving aid and comfort to terrorists, is that there is a distinct difference between the uses of the information we are trying to get.

'Alternative' CIA tactics complicate Padilla case: "Evidence against the American terror suspect was obtained through torture, his lawyers say.

(Via Christian Science Monitor | USA.)

You want to defend these practices, knock yourself out.  No seriously, take a hammer and beat yourself around the cranium until some sense penetrates your thick skull.

In fact, go play your little "24" -- find the nuke by breaking bones -- game.  Be my guest.  But don't expect to make it legal, or to use something so patently illegal, so anathema to civilized behavior, as evidence in a legal proceeding.

Somehow I'm not surprised that Senator Tubes is on the wrong side of this debate. Even though Stevens, along with Warner, Graham, Hagel and McCain are the only vets the GOP can claim as members of the World's Most Deliberative Body -- it's obvious that as one of nine Senators to vote against the anti-torture bill last year, he's brain damaged.

A lot of folks are surprised, even upset that we would have this debate.  It is kind of surreal that we've come to this point.  However, this nation is one of the few places where this kind of debate has a fair shot at a decent hearing.

Mind you, the Administration never wanted this debate.  They'd rather just stack Congress with the same sycophants they put in charge of rebuilding Iraq.  Failure and incompetence they can live with.  Dissent and disloyalty is something they are incapable of anticipating any more than the foreseeably "unexpected" levee break or looting or resistance to occupation, or corrupt cronyism.

Look, I'm all for saving Albuquerque from catastrophe by any means necessary.  But once a captive would-be terrorist is charged with a crime, they become a criminal defendant, and should expect the same treatment extended to the most vile, low-life child rapist.  That includes the right to confront and rebut the evidence and to have their incarceration subject to habeas corpus review.

It's a glaringly sad fact that some people accused of being terrorists are completely innocent of anything beyond breathing while looking like a muslim.  The President made a high profile showing that we have some very, very bad people in custody when he shipped 14 of the worst of the worst from their CIA "black sites" to Gitmo. 

The question remains, just how many of the 14,000 other detainees held in camp "who-knows-where" shouldn't be there and certainly shouldn't be tortured any more than Maher Arar, a Canadian who was shipped off to Syria by the U.S., tortured as a terrorist suspect for 10 months, and never did a damn thing wrong.

Did I mention that we sent this poor innocent guy to "Axis of Evil" nation, Syria?

This isn't rocket science.  It's civics 101.  A class obviously phoned in by President Bush, and only the despicable Professor Yoo would have given him a passing grade.  To clarify, even the real Nazis knew they could get better intel from psychological rather than physical interrogation methods.  And they were never stupid enough to try and use information obtained through torture to convict someone of a crime, let alone think they could rely on the info as reliable enough to use for their tactical or strategic plans.