The initial lead which led to his assassination came out of interrogations of Guantanamo inmates – interrogations which often used torture, a fact that has been condemned by human rights groups. One of these interrogations, of top al-Qaida operative who was close to Khaled Shiekh Muhammad, was helpful in identifying some of bin Laden's closest aides. U.S. intelligence caught up to them and put them under surveillance. Other HUMINT sources of those part of circles close and far to him and who knew of his hideout were exposed as well. The main principle guiding intelligence officials was "follow the money." The first tips as to his hideout arrived over six months ago, after intelligence officers were able to track couriers in charge of the money transfers bin Laden orchestrated to his Pakistan hideout in order to sustain his wives as well as himself.

(Emphasis supplied.) Rather than confirming that torture had anything to do with this operation, this Haaretz article seems to confirm the opposite to me. The first tip as to this hideout arrived six months ago and was due to "following the money." How this connects to a "torture" success is not at all clear to me.

The NYTimes article Cowen relies on states:

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.

Still, it was not until August that they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Again, no mention of torture.

Now for the next point - what was the common argument for when torture would be acceptable? The Jack Bauer ticking time bomb scenario. Even if torture was a part of this operation, and as I say, there is no evidence that there was torture involved, the ticking bomb would have blown up 6 years ago.

I suppose, to take Drum's approach, I can't argue about the inefficacy of torture here, but I will nonetheless - if torture is acceptable to gain a sliver of information that MAY, given 6 years of hard conventional intelligence work down the line, be of value, then why have any rules at all on anything? After all, anything MIGHT work at some point in the future, including massacre of civilians.

Torture is a crime. Against humanity. Against the laws of war. Against international law. And against US law.

It also does not work.

All of these are valid arguments against torture. Drum is wrong to suggest the lack of efficacy is not a legitimate argument against torture.

Speaking for me only