"We Don't Torture"

Larry Johnson at TPM Cafe presents a good argument against torture. Put simply, torture does not gain useful information and makes enemies, if the torture stops short of murder.

Bob Cesca over at Huffington Post looks at it from another angle, and comments on Bush's latest lie:

"We do not torture," the president said Monday in Panama City.

He's either outright lying or the administration has a very different definition of torture than the rest of the world. I would argue that it's both.

But Cheney's demand to carve an exception for the CIA out of the torture ban that has so far passed the Senate would essentially approve torture for any US agent. I mean, how hard can it be to get one CIA agent to within spitting distance of your torture chamber? Or to get your victim to the agent?

We have to assume they're everywhere anyway, and they'll just carry around little tin CIA badges to hand out to whoever needs to break somebody's head.