My God, what are we doing?

If there is one thing we know about the war on terror and terrorists in general, it's that the only way to get useful information is though not only violating the Constitutional rights of Americans and through the brutal interrogation methods that are totally not torture. If you want intel you use waterboards, stress positions, hot and cold rooms, sonic and mental warfare, sensory deprivation, beatings, barking dogs, rendition to countries that aren't so nice, and the removal of all ethical, moral, and legal protections. As we've learned from some of our manliest and patriotic elected leaders and political pundits: it's the only way.

Which is why I'm sure that this was just a one time, fluke,... a mistake.

The family of the failed Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, played a pivotal role in getting their son to start cooperating with federal authorities in sharing information about Al Qaeda, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.
...
“One of the principal reasons why his family [helped] is because they had complete trust in the US system of justice and believed that Umar Farouq would be treated fairly and appropriately," the senior official said. "And that they would be as well.”

The FBI and Abdulmuttalab's family approached the subject and “gained his cooperation. He has been cooperating for days," the official said.

Talking? Getting the family involved? Engaging in a "'thorough and comprehensive' background investigation"? Trying to gain an "understanding of the subject”? Miranda rights? Trials in US courts? No torture? I mean, no enhanced interrogation? This doesn't give me a war on terror boner, no, this doesn't give me a boner at all.

How this country supposed to feel like a man if it doesn't know that terrorists aren't being brutalized in order to extract intelligence? How is this country supposed to feel about freedom if at the very least thousands of volts haven't been applied to the testicles of a suspected terrorist in an Estonian gulag? How does this make us feel a sense of revenge for that thing with the buildings that happened a while back? God damn these seemingly more effective methods and Abdulmuttalab's co-operation!

We need to decide, as a country, what's more important: feeling good about ourselves my beating up terrorists and suspected terrorists while attempting to cover up and legitimize Bush era abuses or do we want and effective defense of this country and sensible terrorism policies. I think we know the answer to that question. Someone go get 183 buckets of water and a barking dog.