Torture is OK, really

We expect graduates of Yale University to be some of the most elite and talented leaders in the nation. We expect them to not only get a degree but be prepared to make the tough decisions. Well, kudos to you Yale. I don’t know how you had the foresight to teach George W. Bush the importance of torture, but you did and a whole nation owes you a bit of gratitude.


The first time Bush appeared in the New York Times, it was on Nov. 8,1967 when the Yale senior defended a fraternity tradition of branding members with a hot coat hangar. Bush showed an early sign of his brilliance, telling the paper the resulting wound was “only a cigarette burn.”


Now, almost 40 years later, Bush has developed that rudimental branding into something he can use in the war against terror. Sure, there is a difference in branding fraternity friends and laughing at a terrorist’s genitals, but somehow the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity knew this ritual could one day be used in a much greater cause. 

Whether we are making naked men pile up on top of each other as we did in Abu Ghraib or using “water-boarding,” a drowning technique that Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed and confirmed the use of against terrorists, it is obvious torture is something this administration has had to use to protect us.


Never mind the Geneva Conventions we signed. We didn’t really understand the power of torture. Never mind that this administration claims to be led by Jesus Christ. When we dealt with the Holocaust, we didn’t really understand that torture is OK when you are the ones dishing it out. And sure, Christ taught us to turn the other cheek, but he never saw a terrorist cut someone’s head off. We are better people than the terrorists, plain and simple, but we get to be just as dirty as them on this one.


The torture itself is redeemed by the fact that we are saving lives. Since Sept. 11, only one other airplane has flown into a New York City building. That appears to have been an accident by Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, but it would have been OK to torture him a little if we could have stopped that. 


Torture is helping us get all the good information from our enemies. We had Saddam Hussein in custody for some time. He never told us where those weapons of mass destruction are, but if we really gave him the royal treatment he would have squealed in no time.


So, for all those people who are complaining about this torture thing, just think about John McCain. He was tortured so bad during Vietnam he can no longer lift his arms. They used torture, as America should, to get all kinds of good stuff from him. Well, he didn’t exactly give any secrets to them, so that may not be the best example. But take this administration’s word for it, torture can be used to fight terrorism.