Pen-Elayne on the Web

Implausible Deniability

Paul Krugman asks, "why is the Bush administration so determined to torture people? To show that it can." Well, that may be part of it, it's a hallmark of any corrupted empire to throw its weight around and bully other countries, and the radical regressives in power have never been reluctant in that regard. But I think they're also looking for a fringe benefit. They want to be able to misuse information gathered via torture, when prisoners are so eager to stop the pain that they'll confess to anything their captors want to hear no matter if it's true or not, and when the basis for whatever adventure they then undertake is proven as false as the rationales for Iraq, they can then point the finger at someone else for giving them the information they wanted to hear. After all, they've done it before. Call it implausible deniability.