Inevitable Consequences

Michael Ignatieff would like to believe that, once let out of the bottle, the torture genie can be constrained within the law - he believes that it can be leashed, if you will. It can't be, and here's what it leads to: Truly horrible people get to use your mideeds against you. From Saddam's trial:

The defense also continued to use the trial to attempt to score political points.

After Witness A testified about conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, where she recalled lice crawling on prisoners' scalps and using pieces of cardboard as shoes to go to the bathroom outside during the winter, the defense found an opening.

"I agree that things in Abu Ghraib were, until recently, bad, but did they use dogs on you? Did they take photographs?" said one defense attorney, alluding to U.S. troops' abuse of Iraqi detainees at the prison.

"No," she replied.

I've asked it before - would Ignatieff prefer we were involved in this mess?