The October 28, 2008 episode of Without A Trace, "Rise and Fall",  contained a scene in which Agent Malone tortures the brother of a serial killer by choking him with a wire clothes hanger as the killer does to kill his victims. The brother then reveals where the killer took the victim.

This strikes me as a blatant attempt to condition people to accept torture as a legitimate part of law enforcement and military operations. Portraying that horrible practice as the way to save people rather than as the life destroying abomination that it is stands decency and morality on their heads. Is this what our values have sunk to? That our TV heroes should be the ones who engage in such despicable practices is unacceptable.

The arguments pro torture generally revolve around gathering intelligence. I'd like to suggest that this is largely false. Extracting information from people is just the excuse used to cover the real reasons for torturing. There are basically two.

The first is to break enemy leaders and potential leaders. Leave them in such a broken state of mind that they can't effectively organize opposition to the US government. This is bad enough, but it begs the question of who is being tortured? Going after potential leaders inevitably means that many innocents will be hauled in.

The second reason for torturing is intimidation. Trying to strike fear in those who would oppose the US government. Submit or this could happen to you.

Please don't help lay the ground work for these practices that the US government uses overseas to become widespread here at home. (If it's not too late already.) In the future please don't portray torturers as heroes.