Richard Cohen on Torture

Richard Cohen has an OpEd piece in the WaPo today that asks the question "What if Cheney is right?" Meaning, what if we did get useful intelligence information through the use of torture on suspects?

Still, every dog has his day, and Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture. He says he knows of two CIA memos that support his contention that the harsh interrogation methods worked and that many lives were saved. "That's what's in those memos," he told Schieffer. They talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped."

That's some twisted logic. The ends justify the means. In a nation of laws, that's a very slippery slope. Imagine I decide to rob a bank but donate the money to breast cancer research. While the act of donating the money to charity is good, the means by which I arrived at the funds to provide that donation was illegal. Same goes for torture. Torture is illegal. No matter how much good information was gathered does not abrogate the Bush Crime Syndicate from answering to the law.