Nicholas Eymerich, revisited

Previous posts have introduced readers to

Nicholas Eymerich, inquisitor general of the Inquisition of the Crown of Aragon; 1357-1360, 1366(?)-1381(?):

He was the first inquisitor to get around the Church's prohibition against torturing a subject twice by interpreting directive very liberally, permitting a separate instance of torture for a separate charge of heresy.
[Wikipedia entry, Nicholas Eymerich]

After many years as Inquisitor General, he finally concluded that,

"Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces."
["Torture is deceptive and ineffectual."]

Today?

I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq
By Matthew Alexander
Sunday, November 30, 2008
WaPo op-ed
"... Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."

Torture does NOT work.

A lesson learned by a Spanish Inquisitor in the 14th-century bears repeating today:

"Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces."
["Torture is deceptive and ineffectual."]