Bush Does Not Get It (Part 3):

‘One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture’.

In today’s New York Times Mark Danner, author of Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror reviews the Bush administration’s record on the use of torture, the treatment of prisoners since 9/11, and the progress of the war on terror. Danner ‘gets it’. “The war in Iraq and the war on terrorism are ultimately political in character. Victory depends in the end not on technology or on overwhelming force but on political persuasion. By using torture, the country relinquishes the very ideological advantage - the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights - that the president has so persistently claimed is America's most powerful weapon in defeating Islamic extremism. One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture.