Because when we do torture, we can no longer complain about the treatment of American citizens and soldiers, like the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, sentenced for spying on North Korea. Here is what they will be treated like during the next 12 years:
Conditions in camps for political prisoners [in North Korea] are even harsher and feature such pleasantries as “prolonged periods of exposure to the elements; humiliations such as public nakedness; confinement for up to several weeks in small ‘punishment cells’ in which prisoners were unable to stand upright or lie down; being forced to kneel or sit immobilized for long periods; being hung by the wrists; being forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse.”
Andrew Sullivan is right: sounds like Bush’s America to me.