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 A 'Tortured' Debate Nihilists Are Counting on This Peter B. Prange - Maryborough, Australia I appreciate the well thought out editorial. In Australia there is opposition to tougher antiterror legislation, primarily because people believe innocents will be caught in the net suffer injustice. Forty years ago and more, nihilists were counting on such thinking. Through terror, they proposed to cause government reaction the people would first oppose and then rebel against. That would then help create the anarchy that would enable them to remake the world in their own image. The editor is correct, the Bush administration better start explaining reality to the American people, or it will give those behind terrorism exactly what they are seeking to achieve, people who do not understand leading to people who oppose leading to people who rebel.
 Working for the Other Side Alice Felt - Walla Walla, Wash. Isn't it interesting that it is usually one side of the political aisle that seems so intent on hampering our ability to defend ourselves? From suggesting in the past that we unilaterally disarm, to efforts to reduce the size and capability of our military, to creating energy dependence that creates a national security risk, to defanging the CIA and now supposed timidity in questioning terrorists. Gee. You'd almost think they were working for the other side.
World's Most Useless Debating Society R.L. Hails Sr. - Olney, Md. This nation has contended with prisoners for centuries. Why the sudden need to lard on more legislation on this subject? Do we need another law that requires the military and the CIA to treat prisoners in the exact same manner as they were treated under President Kennedy? Voters would have more respect for our senators if they would quit insulting our intelligence and work on real problems. The Corps of Engineers may have killed and tortured more people with crummy levees than all the harm done by our prisoner guards. Does anyone remember an environmental debate 20 years ago on the danger of drowning a city in raw sewerage?
Ignoring the Conventions John Weigel - New Orleans The article hits the nail on the head. Messrs. Kennedy, Durbin and even McCain fail to address the Geneva Conventions, nor do other blowhards in the Senate and House. It is sorrowful the TV networks do not refer to the conventions' terms.
Sacrificing Our Soldiers in the War on Bush Stephen Leonard - Atlanta The enormous moral and legal difference between Islamic terrorists and uniformed enemy soldiers; the critical need to obtain information to forestall their abhorrent attacks on noncombatant civilians; and the great gulf between what has historically been seen as "torture"; and the stress techniques utilized by our military and intelligence services are all so crystal clear, so patently obvious, that it defies belief that presumably intelligent people can fail instantly to recognize them. So one can only conclude that Sens. Durbin, Dodd, Kennedy, et al., are so consumed with loathing and resentment of President Bush that they are willing to sacrifice anything and everything, including the welfare of our soldiers and the survival of our nation, to defeat him. They have sunk lower than any politician in my lifetime; they are truly a national disgrace.
Where's the Asterisk? Mark Weber - Los Angeles On the occasion of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, George W. Bush said that "the United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture."
Is This Clear? David E. Herron - Ronne, Denmark With the exception of Abraham Lincoln's bottom third, the people you can fool all the time, the American people are wise enough to understand that we cannot win the war on terror if we do not lead with our strongest weapons, our discipline and our integrity. Americans who "cut wood and carry water" for a living, like the majority of the world's population, also well understand that you cannot produce good intelligence without both common sense and a whole lot of help from ordinary people. As a concerned veteran, I write to you in the hope that The Wall Street Journal will find the courage and wisdom to abandon the McCarthy-like scare tactics this editorial represents and to exercise the conservative common sense needed to deal with reality. After four years, thousands of irreplaceable human casualties and uncounted billions in costs, Osama bin Laden and his kind are still out there.
Doggone Pygmies! Fredereic Lindsay - Edinburgh, Scotland It is sad to read yet another specious defense of torture by an American journalist. The argument for all out torture has in fact been given to President Bush by lawyer John Yoo. That advice was influential, despite Mr. Yoo's low rank in the administration, exactly because it was what Mr. Bush wanted to hear. It is America's misfortune that at a time when the highest principles should govern the response to the terrorist threat that it has been governed by moral pygmies. All the evidence suggests that torture makes a democracy less secure. Lose the moral high ground and it is hard to see what a democracy is fighting to protect.
Don't Argue About It, Just Do It John Gauthier - Las Vegas This whole tortured debate on torture demonstrates more than anything why our image in the world is at an all-time low. There probably isn't a country in the world that has not used coercive techniques to extract information it deemed critical. None to my knowledge advertise that fact as a matter of public policy, even the most cretinous of dictatorships.
Where Will It All End? T.J. Parker - New York What does this mean?
A Defensive Strategy Bill Breuer - Malverne, N.Y. The McCain restrictions on aggressive interrogations are designed to provide cover for John McCain's presidential run in 2008. Mr. McCain's POW experiences will be subjected to jaundiced review by the left. The amendments make the case that no prisoner can be faulted for his actions at the hands of brutal captors.
Americans Respect the Rule of Law K. Vijayakumar - Bangalore, India When a foreigner visits the U.S., he learns, even at the airport where he lands, how much ordinary Americans respect the law and civilized behavior. It is therefore difficult to believe that Americans will be different when a threat of terrorism hangs on their heads. However "A tortured Debate" wrongly presumes that they will approve of torturing suspected terrorists on the uncertain assumption that it will give useful information to CIA which can protect them from future terrorist attacks.
(R., Media) Brian Grayson - Albuquerque, N.M. Sen. McCain should be ashamed of himself for proposing this. Does he actually think that our country is torturing people like he was tortured? of course not. This is all about him, and him alone. He loves the good press he gets from the liberal media, and knows that they will slobber all over him for proposing them. However, when he runs for president in 2008, he will be shocked to learn that the same media that love him today will rediscover that he is running for president at 72 and has survived cancer.
We Need Accountability Eugene McGovern - Cairo, Egypt Amateurs like me should have nothing to say about the interrogation techniques to be used in the most difficult cases. But we citizens should insist on accountability: Who authorized it? What happened to this detainee? Where is he now?
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