[M]y argument with regard to coercive interrogation is that we should not take anything off the table, if only so that our enemies can’t get comfortable knowing that there is a limit to what we are prepared to do to protect our country and its citizens.
Goldstein brings up two interesting points. One is was Stephen Green calls "defining torture down."
Even now, we hear that “humiliation” is torture—or at the very least, “mistreatment.” Is wrapping an Israeli flag around an Islamist “torture”? Why or why not?
The point of all this being, that until we can more clearly define “suffering” or “anguish”—or distinguish between “suffering” and “discomfort”—we are forced to take positions that we might not otherwise take.
The Abu Ghraib incidents and the bogus Koran toilet flushing story, illustrate this point nicely. Is taking humiliating photos of prisoners torture? Is disrespecting the Koran a form of prisoner abuse?
Second, if we state unequivocally and openly that we will not torture, we are already giving our enemies too much information. Here he quotes Thomas Sowell:
Even in less extreme circumstances, and even if we don’t intend to torture the captured terrorist, does that mean that we need to reduce our leverage by informing all terrorists around the world in advance that they can stonewall indefinitely when captured, without fear of that fate?
The McCain Amendment would limit interrogation techniques to those described in the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. I don't know about you, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of giving terrorists a blueprint as to what they can expect should they be captured.
As I pointed out earlier, deliberately inflicting physical pain may not always produce reliable results. But broadcasting our interrogation techniques will eliminate one of the most effective tools of the interrogator: Fear of the unknown.
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