Courting Disaster: "nothing more than the defense's opening statement in a war crimes trial."

When last we met Marc Thiessen (see post below) he was claiming that we did members of al Qaeda a favor by torturing them because in doing so we relieved them of the burden of concealing information from us. The pseudonymous Matthew Alexander reviews Thiessen's book, Courting Disaster and reveals its utter depravity:

My gut reaction on reading Marc Thiessen's new book, Courting Disaster, was: "Why is a speechwriter who's never served in the military or intelligence community acting as an expert on interrogation and national security?" Certainly, everyone is entitled to a voice in the debate over the lawfulness and efficacy of President Bush's abusive interrogation program, regardless of qualifications. But if you're not an expert on a subject, shouldn't you interview experts before expressing an opinion? Instead, Thiessen relies solely on the opinions of the CIA interrogators who used torture and abuse and are thus most vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes. That makes his book less a serious discussion of interrogation policy than a literary defense of war criminals. Nowhere in this book will you find the opinions of experienced military interrogators who successfully interrogated Islamic extremists. Not once does he cite Army Doctrine—which warns of the negative consequences of torture and abuse. Courting Disaster is nothing more than the defense's opening statement in a war crimes trial.

Worth reading in its entirety.