http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/doing-the-indefensible-de_b_6327266.html

Ivan Eland Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty, The Independent Institute

Doing the Indefensible: Defending Torture

Posted: 12/15/2014

On the news talk shows, everyone is talking about torture -- mostly defending the Bush administration's hysterical actions after the 9/11 attacks. Granted, 9/11 was a searing experience for the general public, which wanted action in retaliation. However, it is the duty of wise political leaders to reason with the public to dampen the desire for any rash, counterproductive actions. Instead, Bush administration officials used such public fear and anger from 9/11 to fuel public support for their own unrelated policy agenda that made the Islamist terrorism problem worse. Torture was one aspect of that policy agenda. Even after 9/11, terrorism was a rare event, as it was before, and government terrorism experts should have known that the resources of a small group, such as al Qaeda, were not great enough to necessitate excesses in response, such as torture and other government usurpation of American constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/doing-the-indefensible-de_b_6327266.html