Proud of Torture

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

It's amazing, though it shouldn't be, to see the former vice-president of the United States arguing that the government still should be torturing people, and that torture is one of the things he's proudest of. I think the worst thing about the Obama administration's "looking forward" doctrine is that it virtually guarantees that torture will happen again--perhaps even under the very next administration.

It not simply that modern America officially condones torture, it is that modern America condemns torture when executed by people we don't like, and calls it "enhanced interrogation" when we do it. Media has, in disgraceful fashion, bought this Orwellian line. I fully expect to see more enhanced interrogation in my lifetime. I would not be shocked to see it filter down to law enforcement. Foreign terrorists are not the only people who kill.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/proud-of-torture/244319/