bush official on torture

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani." Who said that? Susan J. Crawford, life-long Republican and experienced judge, who is the convening authority of military commissions.

Crawford didn't lay it solely on the interrogators, either, saying the techniques were authorized.

She detailed the physical and mental abuse heaped on Qahtani (who, no doubt, would have been happy to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, as he had planned).

We already know torture is ineffective, that there are better techniques to get information, and that even the Israelis agree torture doesn't work.

But Crawford also made this point about the torture she has found in her investigation: "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

Well said. Even if torture WERE effective, we as a country should be above using it.