Strolling through the leafy campus of American University of Beirut on a balmy late May evening, I can easily believe I am in Southern California. The buildings are Victorian-era sandstone; the students linger in shorts and T-shirts; a long street of fast food joints and bookstores faces the front gates....

Former Vice President Cheney has masterfully shifted the debate about torture from the realm of law and ethics to that of pure efficacy. Liberal columnist Richard Cohen "has to wonder if what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works." The famously secretive Cheney is now clamoring...