Middleground
: David Weinberger tries to find a middleground and I think he succeeds:
I am willing to admit that there are circumstances in which torture is permissible, just as I think sometimes we have to kill people. And I’m willing to admit that what we apparently put the Abu Ghraib prisoners through wasn’t nearly as bad as the torture that’s routine in many other countries.
Is the right willing to admit that: Torture should only be used in the direst of circumstances? Torture should never be a cause for the exulting shown in the photos? The people responsible for allowing the wholesale torture at Abu Ghraib need to be punished severely, quickly and publicly not only for the sake of justice but to try to limit some of the damage the practice has done to our war on terror?
Can we get even to that common ground? Can we as a nation say that we abhor torture, except in the rarest of cases? That we do not believe in the institutionalizing of torture? That we will fight it around the world? That we believe in the rule of law and that no one is above the law? That we believe in treating even our enemies with dignity? That we support the established international conventions for treating prisoners? That we are sorry about what went on at Abu Ghraib?
In a word: Yes.
