Adam Serwer skewers Thiessen for saying that Zubaydah thanked his torturers:
I think it's actually irrelevant whether Zubaydah said it or not. Let's say for a moment it's true: Thiessen's larger argument is that, because of this single dubious anecdote, torturing Muslims we suspect of being terrorists is necessary because that's the only way interrogators can get them to talk. There's a word for the process of drawing broad conclusions about entire religions, cultures, and ethnicities from such minute contact -- it's called prejudice.