From The Secret Government narrated by Bill Moyers (aired in 1987):
Bill Moyers: Assume I'm President and I say Professor Firmage that's all wonderful but I deal in an ugly world. The United States is a wonderful place relatively because of the Constitution but beyond our borders it's a pretty ugly world, people don't like us, people don't share our values, people are out to get us, and if I don't do the ugly things that are necessary to protect us from an ugly world you won't be able to exercise the right of free speech out at your University.
Professor Edwin Firmage: I would say poppycock Mr. President. That is simply nonsense. The whole fight is over means not ends. Every President with every good intention and every tyrant with whatever his intention has used precisely the same argument. That is don't constrain me by means and I will get you there safely and well. And I think anytime we accept a reason of state argument to justify means that are totally incongruent with the values of our state, we are on the high road to tyranny and we deserve to be there.
(Former Delta Force Operator Eric Haney): That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does.
I've argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal.
From an interview in Daily News 3/26/06 (now archived)
Through it all the torture advocates (whether they are elected officials, bureaucrats or intelligence officials) want to have it both ways...they don't want to be held accountable for violating US and international law so they deny employing torture, then they turn around and say we tortured because it was necessary to prevent attacks.
1. Torture is illegal. If they can't do their jobs without torture they should go get a job working for Syrian intelligence.
2. Torture doesn't work. They should stop playing the uber patriot card by pretending the motive was to protect the public.
3. It seems more likely torture was employed to extract false confessions and taint the evidence in order to keep high level al Qaeda detainees out of the US court system.
Hasn't the country had enough lectures from these corrupt, sick officials? Their torture arguments have no merit.
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