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Salon.com (liberal, yes, but it raises some interesting points) had a recent interview with a former CIA agent who worked there until 1998 and said that anyone caught using torture as a device to get information would have been immediately dismissed while he was working there. Of course he can't say for certain, but he speculated that torture only became acceptable after 9/11.
I'm wondering why an action that the CIA shied away from for years would suddenly become acceptable?
After all, experience has shown that torture isn't an effective information-getting device because those being tortured will tell you what you want to hear rather than the truth, just so that their suffering will end. And when you take into account that statistic that said 70 percent of those in that jail could easily have no knowledge of what you want to know -- well, you'd be getting a lot of irrelevant information and false leads.
I don't support torture as a technique the US should be using, it's that simple.
And Tom, Iraqis didn't kill Nick Berg. To the best of my recollection, it was a Jordanian that did.
Anyway, I agree with most of the people in this thread when I say that I don't find either action acceptable.
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