Legal Commentary

Mainstreaming Torture: Newsweek Writes A 24 Episode

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Digby, Newsweek hires Stuart Taylor, with an assist from longtime Newsweek Beltway blowhard Evan Thomas, to write an episode of 24:

The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. . . . Waterboarding—simulating drowning by pouring water over the suspect's mouth and nostrils—is a brutal interrogation method. But by some (disputed) accounts, it was CIA waterboarding that got Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to talk. It is a liberal shibboleth that torture doesn't work—that suspects will say anything, including lies, to stop the pain. But the reality is perhaps less clear.

(Emphasis supplied.) The question I have is simply this - who told Newsweek, Taylor and Thomas that torture works? Sounds like a breach of national security. Maybe we should get Jack Bauer to torture them until they reveal their sources.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 11, 2009 (boomark / email).