Brit Hume couldn't waterboard if he wanted to.

Yet again, a morning ruined by unevidenced alarmist inaccuracies.

This morning on the Sunday morning talk shows Brit Hume over at Fox was wearing his ignorance on his arm, as perusual, in the debate on the govt release of torture tactics.

He claimed that the only good part of coming to terms with torture was 'feel good.' IN terms of the US domestically, I guess he doesn't understand the importance of justice. For any country to move forward beyond injustices as such, they have to come to the forefront. It's like Watergate. You have to air out the dirty laundry in order to move or people won't have faith in their government. This would be a horrible scenerio. This is why truth and reconciliation committees are used in places like South Africa post apartheid and Rwanda after the genocide.

Brit also, in his usual arrogant holier than art thou tone, completely dismissed the idea that torture was a bad idea bc it hurts the US reputation abroad. I mean, come on Brit. Winning hearts and minds is key - ask foreign policy wonks, and public diplomacy devotees, or military folks like David Kilcullen and David Patraeus. Most importantly, in the Middle East region people still love our culture (to an extent) and hate our policies. Torture taints both, and therefore takes away one of the last legs (cultural power) we have to stand on the the region - that we are a just, free, moral, ethical country. Justice, in particular, is extremely important to people of the region.

These qualities allow the US to walk the high road - they give us the advantage over terrorists and extremists like those in Swat valley. Even if you're someone that only thinks about US interests you should be against torture for this reason - not torturing allows is to execute other policies because we have the moral and legal high ground.

It was hard to choose, bu this was the MOST blatantly inaccurate statement he made: Brit claimed that there was 'unanimity' in the intelligence community that these tactics are effective. I wonder if he has talked to these guys? Or this group? Maybe this guy. Here is a list of quotes from former CIA and military officials - many in front of congress that torture doesn't work - for a variety of reasons. (We all are familiar wit these I think - that people lie or they don't say a word at all bc of their treatment- and that co-option and incentive is a stronger path.)

There are also now reports out that show the torture used against Zubaydah and gang didn't even yield any legitimate intelligence information! And that furthermore, it endangered the country because of the multiple lies they told sent intelligence community on wild goose chases, diverting their attention from real threats.

From the widely rescted ex CIA official (head of the OBL unit) and author Michael Scheuer: "I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear." (60 minutes "CIA flying suspects to Torture?" March 6, 2005)

Brit and gang's argument (and really their only argument) is that now the 'terrorists know what we will do to them'.
ONE: Umm, Brit, actually all these tactics were banded months ago. I don't know if you got the memo about how Obama administration doesn't torture.

TWO: How the heck are they going to prepare themselves to be thrown around a room with a towel around the neck? Waterboarded?
(I do understand that individuals that work in these professions are prepared in ways to withstand torture, but this as the whole argument for not releasing these memos - especially bc we don't even use them anymore - is ridic.)