The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
News of the Tautological
“An empty oil tanker struck a tower of the San Francisco Bay Bridge on Monday but did not appear to spill any oil into the bay, the U.S. Coast Guard and California state officials said.”–Reuters, Jan. 8
Other Than That, the Story Was Accurate
“An earlier version of this column misstated in a passing reference the equivalent length of time that Jeremy Dean, the author of ‘Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick,’ believes is reasonable for forming a new habit. As the column stated, Mr. Dean believes it is 66 days. But that is equivalent to a little more than two months, not three.”–New York Times, Jan. 7
McCain’s Tortured Logic
Our item yesterday about Sen. John McCain and colleagues’ objections to the fictional film “Zero Dark Thirty” prompted this response from reader William Noll:
I’ve always wondered why John McCain (one of my two senators) is considered a moral authority on the torture of terrorists.
Yes, McCain was tortured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese. But as a young Navy flier, he generally knew only three things of “intelligence value”: 1) Where the aircraft carrier was when he left, 2) Where the carrier was going to be for his return, and 3) his targets. It’s doubtful he knew of how targets were discovered, classified and assigned, and the North Vietnamese Army had little use for attacking a Navy carrier. Therefore, intelligence gathering by torture was pointless, and used solely to demoralize the enemy (us) rather than for gaining useful tactical or strategic information.
Yet torturing a terrorist, typically the sole possessor of information (or at least part of a small group), may be the only way to obtain useful, time-critical information. I think there is significant difference between the two, so much so that in an effort to save lives (the “ticking clock” scenario) that waterboarding and other methods of gathering information are not only moral, but necessary to combat terrorism.
This column disagrees with the characterization of waterboarding as “torture,” but otherwise Noll’s distinction strikes us as apt. In addition, it’s worth noting that North Vietnam, unlike al Qaeda, was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions yet was not restrained by their “moral authority.”
(NOTE: The excerpts above are from the 1/8/13 BOTW archives.)
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
