So a lot of media types have been making grand pronouncements on the topic of torture - the gist being: this is America, and America doesn't torture.

If so, then I'm not sure I want to be part of that America.

Bear with me. I want you to imagine that you've got a mom or a dad working at the Library Building in L.A. Imagine also that a CIA interrogator has captured a terrorist with profound knowledge on a plot to level that building in days. If that terrorist does not reveal that information, your parent dies.

Fact: if a loved one is going to be killed in 24 hours, and an agent is holding someone with knowledge that could save him - you sure as hell want that agent to have every option at his disposal. Imagine if he said, "well, the suspect didn't tell us anything. We asked him and asked him, and he still said nothing. We did all we could do. Sorry about your dad."

That is what happens when you take interrogation techniques off the table. Because all you have left is a group shrug, followed by tragedy.

And while I believe in the grand concept of America, it doesn't mean much when the concept allows for the death of thousands of innocent Americans.

This is called a ticking time bomb scenario, a title that should be taken literally. True, it doesn't happen very often, but then interrogation techniques would be equally as rare. Which is why this "we're America, we don't torture" argument doesn't fly.

Of course we don't torture. Only, however, when we have to.

That's what's great about America.

Anything can happen.