Follow this link to the New York Tmies story about President Obama’s national intelligence director telling colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

Admiral Dennis C. Blair said, “…there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means …”

It makes no difference whether or not any of these assessments are true.  Torture is still illegal and should not be used.

As President Obama said at his appearance at the C.I.A, “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

Laws are not needed when you have no intention of committing the proscribed act.  They are only needed to prevent the act when you might be tempted to do it.

Article III Part 17 of the Geneva Convention states in part:

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

The authors of this section knew what captors would want to do with prisoners.  How much more specific could they have made it to ban what Bush/Cheney wanted to do?  In the infamous words of Bill Clinton does it matter “what the definition of is is?”

What part of this Geneva Convention paragraph is it hard for a lawyer to interpret?