Desrtopa comments on When None Dare Urge Restraint - Less Wrong
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I know this comment is very old, but I'm a bit incredulous at this.
If they had lived, they would have been among the highest profile prisoners America has ever seen. Torture is officially illegal in the United States, and whatever we get up to out of sight and off our turf, the government doesn't like to show the public how we torment our hated enemies.
Timothy McVeigh got a lethal injection, one of the most painless methods of execution which we can contrive. This was, controversially, allowed to be witnessed on broadcast by those closest to the victims of his attack. Perhaps one might argue that torturing the bombers to death for preventative or retributive reasons would have been a good idea, but it's simply not realistic that we would have done it.