A 500-year-old lesson on torture

Re “Heading toward the ‘dark side,’ ” Opinion, Nov. 21

Once again, Vice President Dick Cheney and his, I mean, President Bush’s, administration ignore not only sound ethical bases for prohibiting torture, but reality as well: Information gained by torture is not reliable. After all, the Spanish Inquisition uncovered thousands of witches because everyone who was tortured confessed and named other witches, who were then tortured and named other witches, who ... and so on. Those clerics who had the courage to point out the flaw in the system were often tortured and killed themselves. So I guess it’s a good thing for Sen. John McCain and other critics that Bush probably thinks the Inquisition is a test Spanish students take to get into college.

LYNWOOD SPINKS

Los Angeles

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I enjoyed Elisa Massimino’s Op-Ed article but would like to question one area: Bush can hardly be considered a “commander in chief in wartime.” His so-called war is his own political creation and the result of his unauthorized invasion of a sovereign nation. He deserves no extra power to destroy either our credibility as a nation of peace and law or our basic constitutional freedoms.

TED CONNORS

Santa Monica