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Murder and Mayhem

In China, the government tortures people. This is generally considered bad (although if you spend enough time listening to some of my favorite radio talk show hosts and their guests, you might question that...).

Maybe we torture people, too. My security clearance is not nearly high enough for me say so with any degree of certainty. Maybe we just have a "unique" way of doing things.

But we might want to reconsider our unique methods:

Q. Are you saying the existence of these kinds of sites and the mistreatment of people may actually fuel terrorism?

Nicola Duckworth: I think that the way the Americans behave and treat these people erodes your moral authority. But I wouldn't want to be misunderstood. There can be no excuse for people who commit terrorist acts. So even if we think that there are factors influencing their behavior, it's their responsibility.

But we've noted from our experience working long years in Northern Ireland that the use of internment camps simply alienated people in the community that were needed to solve the problem. It ended up radicalizing a generation, which then takes a generation to undo.

And similarly, if people from various Arab or Muslim or other communities perceive mistreatment, like these three men from Yemen, then it's going to be even more difficult to convince them that what we're trying to do is the right course of action.

So why make things harder on ourselves?

While we're at it, if we really want to seem civil, we might want to stop executing people. "Only China, Iran and Vietnam had more executions in 2004 than the United States." Hey, there's China again!