Cliche Watch
As reported in the Boston Globe this morning, the Bush administration has taken Senator John McCain's anti-torture bill to heart and decided once again, "Separation of powers, schmeparation of powers", adding his own "signing statement" that roughly translates: just like the laws governing domestic wiretaps, he'll ignore the law whenever he sees fit, citing the "ticking time-bomb scenario."
While we fully acknowledge that being confronted by the heady musk of the velvety Kiefer Sutherland would totally compel us to drop dimes on everyone we knew and loved, wethinks that someone in the administration has been watching too much 24 . Is defeating a potential ticking timebomb scenario even plausible? By applying the organ known colloquially as "the brain" the answer would be no.
Think about it. If we're a terrorist with the awareness of a ticking timebomb, our response to interrogation is going to line up with where the second hand on the timebomb is. If we're prepared to die for our crazy-ass cause, what does five minutes of genital electrocution between friends matter to us? Besides, the pain of Dick Cheney's global hostels could well be avoided through the magical power of lying. Planning for the contingency in advance, an intelligent enemy of the state could kill many an hour sending officials scrambling on well-conceived wild goose chases.
Hell, to be perfectly honest, if we ever find ourselves confronted with the ticking timebomb scenario and our only way of defusing it is torturing a suspect, all the torturee would have to have at his disposal is a thorough knowledge of recent current events. Such a terrorist could happily avoid torture by telling the gospel truth, knowing full well that the official assigned to carry out the operation is likely to be some incompetent crony fuckwad from President Bush's book club. In short, the "ticking timebomb scenario" is the most tortured part of the discussion.— DCEIVER
Bush could bypass new torture ban [Boston Globe]