Notable quote from article:

"...that's the highest calling of democracy, to defend its civilians
against guilty murderers..." - Dershowitz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, May 22, 2004 1:17 p.m. EDT
Dershowitz: U.S. Needs Improved Torture Tactics
"If we were to limit our rough interrogation methods to the most
important, high-value detainees," he said, the critics would be few.
"Nobody is complaining about what we have done to [9/11 mastermind]
Shaikh Khalid Mohammed," he noted.

Notable quote from article:

"...that's the highest calling of democracy, to defend its civilians
against guilty murderers..." - Dershowitz

Dershowitz: U.S. Needs Improved Torture Tactics

Notable quote from article:

"...that‘s the highest calling of democracy, to defend its civilians
against guilty murderers..." - Dershowitz

Saturday, May 22, 2004 1:17 p.m. EDT
Dershowitz: U.S. Needs Improved Torture Tactics

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who urged that terrorists be
tortured in a Nov. 2001 column he wrote for the Los Angeles Times,
isn't backing away from his position one bit in the wake of the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal.

In fact, the noted civil libertarian said Thursday that the only thing
U.S. did wrong was to use tactics that were amateurish and
ineffective.

"We should never do what we did at Abu Ghraib, which is turn a bunch
amateurs with no experience on to a bunch of low-level detainees and
tell them essentially, do what you have to do to soften them up,"
Dershowitz told MSNBC's "Scarborough Country."

Instead, torture of high value terror suspects should be authorized by
either the President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
Secretary of Defense, he urged.

Asked if he thought Americans were ready to "do what it takes" to get
information from terrorists who threaten American lives, Dershowitz
told host Joe Scarborough, "I think so. But I think Americans want us
to do it smarter, want us to do it better. We could have done it a lot
smarter."

"If we were to limit our rough interrogation methods to the most
important, high-value detainees," he said, the critics would be few.
"Nobody is complaining about what we have done to [9/11 mastermind]
Shaikh Khalid Mohammed," he noted.

The acceptance of torture in the Khalid Mohammed case, said
Dershowitz, shows that "Americans are prepared to go to extraordinary
lengths to save American lives and the lives of many others, as long
as we do it smart, and we do it with accountability."

And he challenged the claims by some pundits who say torture almost
never works because the subject will inevitably say anything to
alleviate the pain.

"We had a case in the Philippines where [local police] tortured
somebody and revealed a plot to knock down 11 or 12 commercial
airliners flying over the Pacific and a plot to kill the pope," he
noted.

And Dershowitz even defended sexual humiliation as a good way to press
Muslim detainees for critical information.

"It‘s a good thing to use women interrogators on radical Muslim
extremists," he told MSNBC. "I think it‘s a good thing to make them be
stripped naked. I think these are legitimate forms of interrogation in
cases where we have high-level prisoners who can provide high-level
information."

The top legal thinker recommended that the U.S. should unabashedly
tell the world that torturing high value terrorist suspects is
justified "because of the war that has been thrust upon us."

"As long as we do it in a way that we can be proud and hold our heads
up and say, yes, we did this," he told MSNBC. "But we have to be smart
and we have to have accountability."

The world's terrorists, he said, have "put us in a position where have
to defend our civilians. And that‘s the highest calling of democracy,
to defend its civilians against guilty murderers that are out there
trying to kill our grandchildren and kill our children."