If such tactics are so great, expand use

If torture is a useful and necessary tool to obtain good and accurate information from suspected terrorists, as claimed by the Bush administration and some Herald readers, then we should greatly expand its use. Rather than limit torture to suspected terrorists, we should encourage the FBI and local police departments to use torture to obtain information and confessions from suspected murderers, rapists, child molestors, drug dealers, car thieves, and anyone else suspected of a heinous crime.

Or maybe we should remember the words of our founding fathers who, in their wisdom, explicitly outlawed in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution the use of cruel and unusual punishments. No civilized society can condone torture and call itself civilized. If we have to use torture to win the war on terrorism then our actions show that we are no better than the terrorists and we will be judged as such.

Doug Beyerlein

Mill Creek