I Told You So

Still it's nice to have what you've said confirmed. I, Bruce and many of the bloggers I follow have vociferously condemned the use of torture for years.

In the Washington Post (of all papers) is an op-ed by Matthew Alexander, an Air Force interrogator, stating quite plainly why "Enhanced Interrogation" not only didn't work, but cost American lives:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for Al Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me–unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

Hat tip to Scott Horton at his No Comment Blog for alerting his readers to this op-ed.