The reference point is, of course, 9/11.
Before that day, we were soft and naïve. If only we had tortured someone we could have stopped it. And saved American lives!
That, of course, is utterly false. We had quite enough information to have prevented 9/11. It had been gathered through normal and legal police and intelligence methods. It was not used due to bureaucratic infighting, ineptitude, incompetence, excess secrecy, and, most of all, the willful and pointed disregard of that information by Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and George W. Bush.
Now, we’re smart and tough. We do torture-lite and outsource the really evil stuff. Has it worked?
In October 2001, the FBI put out a Most Wanted Terrorists list. It had 22 names on it. As of 2006, 17 of them were still “at large.” Including Osama bin Laden.
Yeah, well, I bet going “to the dark side” stopped a bunch of terrorist attacks.
No. None that we know of.
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