Do people who believe that torture is wrong under all circumstances arrive at this conclusion after a painstaking analysis of all the scenarios in which torture might be the only choice to avoid individual or collective catastrophe? Or is it just another way of signaling to the rest of the world that you  are on the right side of history (and thus superior)? Or worse, a necessary political position to take if you want to prosecute your political opponents (although you have won the election)?

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post Michael Scheuer writes:

Surprisingly, Obama now stands alongside Bush as a genuine American Jacobin, both of them seeing the world as they want it to be, not as it is. …As with all Jacobins, Obama cannot allow a hard and often brutal reality — call it an inconvenient truth — to impinge on his view of how the world should and must be made to work.

Further reading: Michael Levin – The Case for Torture

Anti-war.com archive for Michael Scheuer.

HT Ilana Mercer