Now as promised, a Special Comment on what General Petraeus has said in defense of torture.
He has, in short, declared himself unfit to serve as head of Central Intelligence.
You don't even have to get to the morality question to understand that torture serves no purpose but to satiate sadism or revenge fantasies. As an interrogation tool it is useless for the simple and unanswerable reason that people will tell you anything -- true or not -- to get you to stop.
A civilian who does not understand this is merely foolish, uninformed, or stupid.
A military man -- or a government official -- who does not understand this, is a positive menace to the endurance of the nation. Frankly, in the case of General Petraeus it suggests he has a non-military I-Q of about 40.
What, General, makes you suppose that your "ticking time bomb scenario suspect" is going to tell you how to dismantle that nuke under the Empire State Building while you are water-boarding him?
Why, if he was already suicidal or evil enough to be involved in some sort of terror plot to detonate a nuclear device, would he not also be simply smart enough to lie to you to get the pain to stop? More over, has it never occurred to you, General, that he might be suicidal or evil enough under that scenario to give you explicit instructions on how to dismantle the device that actually turn out to really be instructions on how to detonate the device immediately.
My God, it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, and it's coming from a man we are going to put in charge of the C-I-A!
You're testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee and giving them half-remembered plot outlines from "24" or "lethal Weapon" -- why not Saturday Night Live? Why not reserve the right to torture in case Superman was German during World War Two, or if Al-Qaeda getsHarry Potter's Invisibility Cloak, or if the country was flooded with women suicide bombers who also were considering a late-term abortion?
Mr. President, you have to withdraw David Petraeus' nomination as C-I-A chief.
He just made a fool of himself to a degree -- and in a manner -- from which there is no possible return. If confirmed, he will do the same to you.
If you do not, you run the risk of what Vietnam did (with the help of the late great George Carlin) to turn the phrase "Military Intelligence" into an oxmoronic brand name.
Only this time it'll be for the C-I-A, where the "I" for Intelligence will be meant ironically, because its chief is so naïve he thinks you can torture the truth out of a suicide bomber as his bomb is about to go off!
