The headline for M.D. Harmon’s Dec. 12 column read: “Terrorist-interrogation report can’t hide its liberal biases.” I suggest a more appropriate headline might be: “Torture interrogation report can’t hide its humane biases.”

Referring to the interrogation methods used by the CIA, Harmon says “acts that caused actual physical harm to terrorist captives seem to be occasional exceptions,” and he justifies this by noting (using Fox media as his authoritative source) that all these practices were approved by Congress years ago.

Presumably, he would also agree with a Fox News host who (amid widespread ridicule) claimed that the Democrats and the president released the report because they want to show us that the U.S. is “not awesome” (whatever that means).

Indeed, it would not have surprised me if Harmon had suggested that Time magazine’s Person of the Year should have been the CIA interrogators, or that the two psychologists who got an $80 million-plus contract for their “enhanced interrogation techniques” should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Michael Beaudoin

Cape Elizabeth


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