In his column today, Washington Post's Richard Cohentells us that he is against torture, which itself is not remarkable. His real point is this: Yet the debate over torture has been infected with silly arguments about utility: whether it works or not. Of course it works–sometimes or rarely, but if a proverbial bomb is ticking, that may just be the one time it works. I refer you to the 1995 interrogation by Philippine authorities of Abdul Hakim Murad, an al-Qaeda terrorist who served up extremely useful information about a plot to blow up airliners when he was told that he [...]
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