17 May 2011

Rick Santorum, too, might be retarded

Yesterday, the former Pennsylvania senator took time off from talking about man-on-dog sodomy to discuss "enhanced interrogation techniques" (read: torture) on Hugh Hewitt's radio show.

Speaking of the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden -- and John McCain's recent comments that the identity of bin Laden's trusted courier were not obtained through torture -- Santorum launched into one of the stupidest monologues in American political history.

I don't, everything I've read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation.

This is absurd. There isn't a shred of evidence to suggest that torture, or enhanced interrogation, led to the identification of bin Laden's courier. I don't know what "shows" Santorum has been watching, but they are probably found in the "fiction" section of the public library. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that the critical information was gleaned using standard, humane interrogation tactics that comport with both U.S. and international law. At best, Santorum is deeply confused. At worst, he is an outright liar.

The next part is priceless, and even dumber.

And so this idea that we didn't ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, [John McCain] doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they're broken, they become cooperative.

Right. A man who was subjected to torture for five and a half years doesn't understand how torture works. Rather, Rick Santorum, lobbyist, former senator and moralist proselytizer extraordinaire does. McCain has said and written, time and again, how the prisoner will do or say anything to make the pain stop. McCain occasionally relates that once when he was tortured, and his interrogators asked him about the identities of his squadron leaders, he gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line. The torture stopped.

As McCain himself noted, the only evidence concerning the waterboarding of Khalid Shiekh Mohammed is that, when waterboarded, he gave his interrogators false information about the identity of bin Laden's courier. Instead of being convinced by the torture to play ball with American interrogators, he went the complete other direction, and gave false information.

I genuinely don't understand the strange obsession with torture that has gripped the Republican Party in the wake of 9/11. Against all reason and evidence, hard-headed fools like Rick Santorum continue to maintain that but for torture, bin Laden would still be alive. This is preposterous, and completely false.

Rick Santorum shouldn't be trusted with a lemonade stand, much less the presidency.

No comments: