Michael Scherer takes on Marc Thiessen‘s anecdote justifying torture based on the apocryphal story of Abu Zubaydah “thanking” his torturers:
Zubaydah’s own view of his abuse, even if it could be verified, simply has no bearing on the moral dilemma presented by harsh interrogation, which, we now know, included techniques such as simulated drowning and sleep deprivation by use of forced stress position for more than seven consecutive days. It is either morally justifiable or it isn’t. The victim does not get to determine the morality of a crime.
It occurs to me that there’s a shorter way to describe Thiessen’s argument: “It isn’t rape because she liked it.”
— A. Serwer
