His arguments include that it is effective and necessary.
Paddy is obviously full of Blarney. The Washington Post has a story on a report finding that Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration folks had a direct hand in implementing and trying to legalize torture. The report goes on to say (emphasis mine):
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the report states. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."
The report is the most direct refutation to date of the administration's rationale for using aggressive interrogation tactics -- that inflicting humiliation and pain on detainees was legal and effective, and helped protect the country. The 25-member panel, without one dissent among the 12 Republican members, declared the opposite to be true.
The administration's policies and the resulting controversies, the panel concluded, "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."
Note to Paddy: Feel free to give us a mea culpa whenever you're ready. You can even send the advance copy to your echo chamber while you're at it.
H/T to James Rowen.
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