This week in torture reporting

This morning, the Post published an op-ed by CIA Director Leon Panetta, within which the Director more or less implores the public not to support investigations and prosecutions of his staff, for wrongdoings committed during the Bush administration. The director has good cause to be concerned, as it's becoming increasingly clear that AG Eric Holder is set to initiate action against intelligence agents who went beyond the guidance offered by President Bush's lawyers. Panetta's arguments have been made before..."mistakes were made, but only because we were scared", "this is no time for retribution", etc. It won't come as any surprise that I find these arguments unpersuasive, given that they wouldn't hold up as a defense for any other crime anywhere in the American justice system. To me, what's more interesting about the op-ed is what Panetta doesn't say. No where does he claim that the torture he hopes to sweep under the rug garnered any valuable intelligence in the war on terror. Surely he of all people would know whether the public should at least keep an open mind about that, and it would certainly help his case, but still...not a word. Only, "please just let it go." What conclusion should we draw?

Speaking of public opinion, the Economist published an article this week, which includes a poll that shows just how far toward an open acceptance of torture we've moved in this country since 2001. 55% of Americans feel torture should be prohibited absolutely, 45% say some level of torture should be be permissible. This is roughly proportional to the how the population of Egypt responded. The Chinese polled 65-35 against torture. Only the Western Europeans (British, French, and Spanish), polled against torture more than 80%.

What was it, again, that makes Americans consider themselves an exceptional people? Didn't it have something to do with the incorruptibility of our convictions about individual dignity and liberty, and the untrustworthiness of government authority? Are we to share our values with the Egyptians now? What hath al Qaeda wrought, indeed.

The Daily Beast reports today about the increasing threat of homegrown terrorism. Not just any homegrown terrorism, Islamic homegrown terrorism. This is serious stuff, and as I've written before, it is precisely because this threat is so grave that we have to steel ourselves to fight it with resolve and with honor, and with the very best, most effective methods available to us. We simply don't have the room to screw around. The connection between our values and our interests, upon which America has always relied, didn't have to erode, except for a small group of ideologues that we somehow let into the White House, who still haven't been able to produce a single shred of evidence that their approach has gotten any results at all. How tragic that half the country is still abiding their nonsense.

Here's a question...Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller in Kansas some months ago, has claimed that he knows of other acts of violence being planned against abortion interests within the United States. Bombings, shootings, etc. What principles, exactly, are stopping federal authorities from strapping Roeder to a table and pouring water down his throat until he gives up every last scrap of information that could be used to protect the public? Isn't the part of us that recoils at that suggestion, the part of us that knows how damaging to us it would be, and how there was no reason to believe it would do any good anyhow...isn't that the best of us?