Torture works, right? After all, we’ve listened for years as conservatives have justified the use of torture as a means of gathering intelligence, since clearly terrorists won’t provide useful intelligence unless they’re tortured:
The “underwear bomber” has resumed cooperating with FBI counterterrorism agents and has provided “useful, current” intelligence, a law enforcement source told POLITICO on Tuesday.
The Obama administration has been criticized for reading Miranda rights to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the fizzled airborne bombing attempt on Christmas Day.
The suspect, now being held in a federal prison outside Detroit, was questioned by the FBI for 50 minutes on the day of the attack, then was read his rights.
“Since then, the FBI and Justice Department have been pressing him to cooperate,” the source said. “It started last week, and has continued for several days. The information has been active, useful, and we have been following up. The intelligence is not stale. He certainly sees that there are incentives provided by the criminal justice system to cooperate.”
So here’s what I’m wondering. If we can get useful, current intelligence from terrorists we’re detaining without resorting to using waterboarding and other forms of torture, then why exactly did we ever need to resort to torture?
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