Remember the Cold War, when the threat wasn't that someone might figure out a way to smuggle a small weapon into NYC, but that we'd have fifteen minutes' warning before NYC was subject to multiple megaton-class detonations, along with every other major city in the country?
There isn't even any evidence that the threat of nuclear terrorism is credible. Nukes aren't something you pick up at the local Safeway on your way home from the daily jihad. Compare to 30 years ago, where the threat was absolutely, 100% credible. Literally hundreds of missiles ready to go at a moment's notice. One bad decision or bad hangover away from a billion deaths. And yet, we weren't having debates like this then.
That's not to say that the US was all innocent and pure. But at the very least, torture was secretive, hidden, not defended in public as being a worthwhile and justifiable act.
And then combine all that with the simple fact that torture doesn't even work. All it does is make their friends angry. Do you really think that torturing suspected terrorists reduces the chances of a future terrorist nuclear detonation in Manhattan? I don't see how.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to point out that those hundreds of missiles and hundreds of nuclear warheads are still there and still ready to go at a moment's notice and we are still one person's bad decision or bad hangover away from total annihilation. We just manage to pretend it's not there.
Planned and carried out in secrecy and universally decried afterwards. When it came to light, the President more or less wanted the CIA's head on a pike. Quite different from ongoing secret-but-not-secret torture with a ton of defenders in the public eye and two Presidents who either defend it or try their best to ignore it.
There isn't even any evidence that the threat of nuclear terrorism is credible. Nukes aren't something you pick up at the local Safeway on your way home from the daily jihad. Compare to 30 years ago, where the threat was absolutely, 100% credible. Literally hundreds of missiles ready to go at a moment's notice. One bad decision or bad hangover away from a billion deaths. And yet, we weren't having debates like this then.
That's not to say that the US was all innocent and pure. But at the very least, torture was secretive, hidden, not defended in public as being a worthwhile and justifiable act.
And then combine all that with the simple fact that torture doesn't even work. All it does is make their friends angry. Do you really think that torturing suspected terrorists reduces the chances of a future terrorist nuclear detonation in Manhattan? I don't see how.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to point out that those hundreds of missiles and hundreds of nuclear warheads are still there and still ready to go at a moment's notice and we are still one person's bad decision or bad hangover away from total annihilation. We just manage to pretend it's not there.