A Flawed Report’s Important Lesson - WSJ:
But America should never again do what is asserted and outlined in
the report, which enumerates various incidents of what I believe must
honestly be called torture. American policy should be to treat prisoners
the way we would hope—with clear eyes, knowing it is a hope—our
prisoners would be treated.
The war we are engaged in is
different, we know, and it is still going on and will be for some time,
but it won’t help us fight it to become less like ourselves and more
like those we oppose. Torture is not like us. It’s not part of the
American DNA. We think of ourselves as better than that because we’ve
been better than that.
It is almost childish to say it, yet
children sometimes see obvious truths. We can’t use torture methods and
still at the same time be the hope of the world. You’re an animal like
the other animals or you’re something different, something higher, and
known to be different and higher.