To the Editor:
Let’s put this entire controversy in perspective.
Two kidnappers have taken your child. One is captured and admits that the child is soon to die. The officer guarding the cell walks away and tells you the cell is unlocked. Ninety-nine percent of Americans would do everything they could, including torture, to get information about the child’s whereabouts. The other 1 percent are liars.
Michael Franklin
Jericho, N.Y., May 3, 2009
To the Editor:
With all this talk about what defines torture, I’d like to know what kind of person does this to another person. That is, what kind of person strips someone, hoods him, slaps him, slams him against a wall, places him in “stress positions” or isolation for prolonged periods of time, intimidates him with a dog, and yes, straps him onto a board and pours water down his throat in order to make him think he is about to die. And does this repeatedly, for weeks and months at a time.
I would be mortified if my child grew up to think these actions aren’t torture. But I would find it unspeakable to know that I had raised a child capable of inflicting this behavior on another human being, no matter how despicable that person’s presumed crime.
Sasha Nyary
Northampton, Mass., May 6, 2009
Note from KBJ: For the sake of innocent Americans, I hope the second letter writer's child never occupies a position of public responsibility. By the way, I wonder what the second letter writer thinks of abortion, and in particular "partial-birth" abortion.
