Alan Dershowitz, Shut Up!

An annoying man who will do anything to get attention - is Econo-Girl's opinion of Alan Dershowitz. Let's review his support of torture:

If we knew that an attack was imminent,
If we knew who was involved,
If we knew they knew the details of the attack,
If the Supreme Court says it's OK,
then Prof. Dershowitz thinks it would be OK to torture.

Econo-Girl would like to paraphrase Prof. Dershowitz's position:

If he wasn't saying something outrageous,
Since he doesn't know the subject matter,
If he didn't need to constantly jump up and down in front of a camera,
No one would ask him to be on t.v. if he wasn't a spectacle.

Prof. Dershowitz would never get face time on t.v. if he opposed torture, since too many luminaries with real credentials think the same thing. So he creates an absurd position and shrieks about that instead.

Then he drags Israel into the argument. Israel has banned the use of torture, SINCE IT WASN'T WORKING. That's the thing about the use of torture, IT DOESN'T WORK!!!

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Dershowitz said, "My basic point, though, is we should never under any circumstances allow low-level people to administer torture. If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court Justice."

Umm, which politician is going to put their neck on the line for the cause of torture? The theoretical idea of getting top-level approval is a fantasy. Who will want their names associated with such a decision? None. That's who. Like now, the leaders of the Department of Defense and the CIA are content to let low-level people take the risk for their policy choices.

Donald Rumsfeld, coward-at-large, has created a career by not having "his fingerprints" on risky policies. That's what happened on the torture issue. And like it or not, the President is responsible. Now who's going to tell him?