The argument against torture

by | May 17, 2007 | Robin Kirk

This excellent oped in today’s Washington Post talks about the “recuperative power” of supposed terrorists subjected to torture. The authors, a former Marine commandant and a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, say that torture actually “nurtures” the recuperative power of the enemy, allowing them to gain the moral high ground in any battle.

“Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its ‘recuperative power.'”

And torture, ostensibly used in “special” cases, creates its own logic and can only spread:

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com
As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture — only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works — the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real “ticking time bomb” situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of “flexibility” about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone — the rare exception fast becoming the rule.