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Friday, April 24, 2009

Politics Sullivan on Torture

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 9:59 AM

If you give a shit about just how the United States became a torture state—and what should be done about it—you need to be reading Andrew Sullivan's blog. He's relentlessly tracking this story. He's also naming and shaming the torture enablers, apologists, and hypocrites on the right. Peggy Noonan, Michele Malkin, and all the bully boys at the National Review all might prefer a good waterboarding session—maybe 183 of them—over what Sullivan is doing to them. Read him.

But one of the best commentaries—short and bitter—comes from a reader at TPM:

Last week, conservatives were complaining Obama was establishing a socialistic fascist dictatorship. This week, conservatives are complaining Obama does not want to torture his opponents.

 

Comments (2) RSS

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1
What a bunch of bullshit. I'd much rather be waterboarded than read Andrew Sullivan.

Torture state? You know, there are actual torture states in this world, and the US sure as hell isn't one of them. But hell, don't let little things like "facts" and "the truth" get in the way of your hysteria.

I guess this is the result when a sex blogger writes about politics.
Posted by mr. voluptuous on April 24, 2009 at 11:48 AM · Report
2
The fact is, torture can work. Yes, if you know what you want someone to say, you can torture them until they say it, but if you're trying to get information out of someone, torture can actually accomplish that. Of course you verify what you learn and if they've lied, you torture them more/harder, but to say that torture doesn't work is silly. It obviously can.

On the other hand, we don't want torture to be routine. But if the Obama Administration got wind of a plot to poison Portland's water or detonate a dirty bomb upwind of the city and 10's of thousands of lives were at stake, are you really so against torture that you wouldn't want some Jack Bauer type to do whatever it took to stop it, even if it involved torturing someone who's at war with us and could just as easily have been shot to death in battle?
Posted by Amanda Bandana on April 24, 2009 at 4:35 PM · Report

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