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October 04, 2007

Lies, Lies, and Still More Lies

Remember back in December 2004, following the Abu Ghraib scandal, when the Justice Department publicly declared that torture was "abhorrent"? Then Alberto Gonzales was brought on board in February of 2005, and something happened that you didn't know about: the Justice Department issued a secret second opinion that expansively endorsed "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency," according to New York Times reporters Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen. Specifically, the Bush administration authorized use of a "barrage" of "painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." Gonzales himself approved the authorization over the objections of James Comey, whose congressional testimony about Gonzales' actions outraged America to the point Gonzo finally was forced to resign.

Then, when YOUR and MY representatives in Congress outlawed "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, the Justice Department secretly ruled that its secretly approved torture barrages did not violate that standard.

Shane, Johnston and Risen tell of how the Justice Department ended up in a "mutiny" in 2004 against the Bush administration's torture and other policies. Gonzales "wrenched" the department "back into line with the White House." Since then, it seems the administration is ignoring entirely the will of the people.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas.

Under the auspices of the "War on Terror," the United States has treated prisoners to "slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding." These are tactics we never used before because they were morally reprehensible, ineffective, and likely to be subsequently used on our own young men and women. Our "interrogation" techniques have been modeled after Egyptian, Saudi and Soviet methods – wonderful examples of enlightenment to the world.

I tend to agree with Mr. Comey: “We are likely to hear the words: ‘If we don’t do this, people will die.’” But, he said, government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions. "It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ‘no’ when it matters most. It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.” Or, even better said:

John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy’s top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners.

“I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country’s good, some people will do a lot of it for the country’s better,” Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future.

“The problem is, once you’ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?” he asked.

Answer: the sheep aren't protesting now, and I don't believe the sheep will ever protest unless their partisan handlers tell them to.

Posted by Becky at October 4, 2007 12:33 PM