Hoisted by Our Own Petards

Mohammad al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker" has apparently given the US a lot of information, but is now claiming he lied under the pressure of torture. My guess is that he is lying now, but it would be a lot simpler to disbelieve him if we weren't actually torturing people.

In case you are wondering, a petard is a terms for a small mideavil bomb used to blow up gates and walls or 19th Century animal trap, consisting of a rope and a bent branch that caught the desired beast by one leg as it stepped into a loop in the rope and pulled it up into the air.

Oddly, the phrase in the title to this entry refers to the bomb, not the cartoonish snare. It appears first in Hamlet, and then repeatedly in Bugs Bunny cartoons.