The return of the torture debate is striking because its apologists no longer feel the need to advocate for a narrow exception to prevent an American city from being nuked or a busload of children from dying. In the jubilation over getting bin Laden, they’re instead employing this frightening standard: torture of multiple detainees is justified if it might produce a single useful nugget that, combined with lots of other intelligence, helps lead us to the secret location of the highest value terrorist leader many years later. It’s suddenly the new baseline in our renewed national argument. That’s torture creep.
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf on the renewed torture debate taking hold of American politics (via theatlantic)
This country disgusts me sometimes.
via shortformblog
