Logical Challenges

Despite what people in DC seem to think, it's not what the Speaker of the House knew, and when she knew it, it's what the President and Vice-President of the United States knew, and when they knew it.

If Nancy Pelosi was told about waterboarding early, and did nothing, then she was wrong! That was a bad thing, and she should be punished.

Still, many seem fiercely dedicated to proving what she knew, as if that would somehow make it OK that we tortured people. WRONG!

Sure, it's important to our system of government to determine whether the CIA and the White House did mislead Congressional leaders, or "briefed" them with incomplete information. But it doesn't actually make a whit of difference about whether torture is wrong. It's not a partisan issue - finding a Democrat who was complicit doesn't make it all OK somehow.

Similarly, the question of whether torture "works" or not is irrelevant. Bank robbery 'works', in that it gets the robber lots of money and (one hopes) temporary wealth. But we don't excuse it on that basis.

It is important, I believe, to make clear that actually what we were doing only "works" for the purpose it was originally designed for by the Soviets, the Communist Chinese, and the others we got the techniques from: eliciting false confessions and other untruths. Perhaps that will make people shut up.

But it is secondary to the more fundamental issue of it just being wrong, and the fact that we as a nation passed laws against it decades ago.

And another thing: none of the reasons President Obama gave for changing his position and refusing to release photographs of our prisoner abuses make sense. Dan Froomkin does a good job of explaining that.