Does PNACer Rich Lowry support Torture?

I simply do not know.

However, the National Review editor, and PNAC member suggested as much in this Op-ed

He rejects the McCain Amendment - stating that it is: "Pure Political Grandstanding"

While there may be a kernel of truth to this, anything that gives the impression that the US is doing something to inhibit the abuses of our detainees the world over has at least some merit.

Lowry:

A distinction has to be made between wanton abuses like those in Abu Ghraib and tightly controlled interrogations of top-level al-Qaida captives. Yes, prisoners should be treated humanely, and it will be a permanent blot on the administration's record that it didn't better control how prisoners were being treated in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But there are cases when tough techniques are probably justified. When al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaida, a planner of 9/11, was caught in Pakistan, he had been shot in the groin. Painkillers were administered selectively as an interrogation tactic. He coughed up information that led to the capture of other al-Qaida members. At Guantanamo Bay, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved - then eventually revoked - 16 aggressive techniques for Mohammed al-Qahtani, the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 plot. They involved isolating him, making him stand for long periods and playing on his phobias. They might have helped pressure him into talking.

(much more at link)

Lowry doesn't address the point of whether or not torture works. He offers cases that may or may not stand up to close scrutiny. Lowry uses the qualifiers: "probably" and "might have."

McCain certainly knows.

For a well-balanced article on the effectiveness of torture, see this dispassionate piece by Anne Applebaum. Cited are first hand accounts by military personnel directly involved in harsh interrogation techniques.

Lowry does make a good point that without changes to the Army Field Manual that the amendment is merely an exercise in feel-good legislation. But, can anyone not foresee that this is the most likely outcome of some new legislation? Write the law, and then establish the rules.

I am not so blind as to not see that harsh interrogation tantamount to torture might have some applicability. But to leave the issue unaddressed at this critical juncture in the war on terror is to endanger our own captured troops - and other personnel - by not making any attempt to restore some sense of sanity in the court of world opinion.