Olbermann on Petraeus and Torture

Now as promised, a Special Comment on what General Petraeus has said in defense of torture.

He has, in short, declared himself unfit to serve as head of Central Intelligence.

You don't even have to get to the morality question to understand that torture serves no purpose but to satiate sadism or revenge fantasies. As an interrogation tool it is useless for the simple and unanswerable reason that people will tell you anything -- true or not -- to get you to stop.

A civilian who does not understand this is merely foolish, uninformed, or stupid.

A military man -- or a government official -- who does not understand this, is a positive menace to the endurance of the nation. Frankly, in the case of General Petraeus it suggests he has a non-military I-Q of about 40.

What, General, makes you suppose that your "ticking time bomb scenario suspect" is going to tell you how to dismantle that nuke under the Empire State Building while you are water-boarding him?

Why, if he was already suicidal or evil enough to be involved in some sort of terror plot to detonate a nuclear device, would he not also be simply smart enough to lie to you to get the pain to stop? More over, has it never occurred to you, General, that he might be suicidal or evil enough under that scenario to give you explicit instructions on how to dismantle the device that actually turn out to really be instructions on how to detonate the device immediately.

My God, it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, and it's coming from a man we are going to put in charge of the C-I-A!
~ from Special Comment: Why Petraeus is Wrong (and Stupid) on Torture by Keith Olbermann ~