The Absolute Necessity of Torture

Those brave commentators and bloggers of the radical right who say that we have to employ torture to protect the American people are absolutely correct. Other nations use this technique, and it is clearly effective:

Four of the foreign health workers told Human Rights Watch that [Libyan] interrogators subjected them to electric shocks, beatings to the body with cables and wooden sticks, and beatings on the soles of their feet, in order to extract their confessions. In May, Human Rights Watch interviewed the foreign health workers in Tripoli’s Jadida prison.

“I confessed during torture with electricity. They put small wires on my toes and on my thumbs. Sometimes they put one on my thumb and another on either my tongue, neck or ear,” Valentina Siropulo, one of the Bulgarian defendants, told Human Rights Watch. “They had two kinds of machines, one with a crank and one with buttons.”

Another Bulgarian defendant, Kristiana Valceva, said interrogators used a small machine with cables and a handle that produced electricity.

“During the shocks and torture they asked me where the AIDS came from and what is your role,” she told Human Rights Watch. She said that Libyan interrogators subjected her to electric shocks on her breasts and genitals.

“My confession was all in Arabic without translation,” she said. “We were ready to sign anything just to stop the torture.”

The Libyans, the North Koreans, the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — all knew clearly the value of torture for extracting intelligence or confessions, and all used it to do what had to be done in the defense of their homelands. Congress should stop dithering and give President Bush what he needs to protect our precious, innocent children from the ravening monsters that threaten our lives, our homes, and our very way of life. Future generations will fall to their knees in gratitude for the bravery and foresight of George W. Bush and his administration, and for the President’s tireless efforts to viciously protect and preserve the very soul and essence of what America stands for.

[Opprobrious hat tip to Respectful Insolence]