Torture in the American Concentration Camps 0
Those who think that there is any practical justification for the use of torture (or “unconventional interrogation techiques”) would do well to read Vladimir Bukovsk’s article in Sunday’s Washington Post.
This joke, whispered among those who trusted each other when I was a kid in Moscow in the 1950s, is perhaps the best contribution I can make to the current argument in Washington about legislation banning torture and inhumane treatment of suspected terrorists captured abroad. Now that President Bush has made a public show of endorsing Sen. John McCain’s amendment, it would seem that the debate is ending. But that the debate occurred at all, and that prominent figures are willing to entertain the idea, is perplexing and alarming to me. I have seen what happens to a society that becomes enamored of such methods in its quest for greater security; it takes more than words and political compromise to beat back the impulse.
The fascination of the current Federal Administration with torture is almost pornorgraphic.
