The Ron Suskind story in Time on a plot to use poison gas in the NYC subways notes that “the interrogations of suspects” with knowledge of the planned terrorists attack “were going nowhere.”

And of course, there was no possibility of increasing the intensity of those interrogations – short of torture to be sure but including sufficient “stress and duress” to achieve results.

No, we’ve ruled that out as unacceptably “degrading.” If that means plots like this one will sometimes be successful and Americans will be slaughtered on the A Train … well, that’s the choice we’ve made, isn’t it?

And of course the New York Times, the U.N., and Amnesty International want to close Gitmo and release any enemy combatants who haven’t committed crimes that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in an American courtroom.

Meanwhile, the thrust of the debate is over whether “first responders” have sufficient resources to clean up the carnage afterwards. How reassuring.