The Torture Rationale Falls Apart June 18, 2009

by Will

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 18, 2009

In 2002, George W. Bush described Abu Zubaida, who was seized in Pakistan and detained at Guantanamo Bay, as the third-ranking member of al-Qaeda and the terrorist network?s ?chief of operations.?

CIA interrogators subjected Zubaida to controlled drowning ? more commonly called waterboarding ? 83 times. According to camp physicians, the 38-year-old Pakistani nearly died on four occasions.

After subjecting Zubaida to several years of imprisonment and torture, the CIA now admits that they were entirely mistaken. It turns out that he is not a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative and partner of Osama bin Laden, as the Bush administration claimed. In fact, he has no connection with al-Qaeda of any kind.

Zubaida?s case was used by the Bush administration and its defenders to illustrate the supposed merits of torture. It is actually an object lesson regarding both the practical deficiencies of torture as an investigative tool, and the unqualified evil of the practice.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

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