As usual, Andrew Sullivan remains one of the best sources for facts on, and outrage against, the deplorable torture policies of the previous administration.
While I want to see accountability for war crimes as much as anyone, I can certainly understand why President Obama is picking his battles very carefully right now. Releasing those critical, unredacted torture memos required a big fight with the current CIA leadership. Does Obama press it further and prosecute CIA underlings? Does he shoot higher and prosecute the real culprits, including Bush and Cheney themselves? The resulting political firestorm could derail his entire first term, and quite possibly render it his only term.
Regardless, it is crucial that the revisionists not be allowed the final word. We are not talking about “techniques,” as nearly every mainstream news report is calling them. We are talking about torture, which most expert interrogators agree does not yield good intelligence. And the Bush administration did not torture only in the most urgent, extraordinary circumstances, the cases of the “ticking bomb.” This is a lie. They tortured as a matter of routine. They tortured the innocent along with the probably guilty. They waterboarded Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times in one month. As one blogger wrote (I paraphrase), I’m sure the 184th time would have worked like a charm.
What emerges is a picture not only of brutality, but ineptitude.
Another thing: Isn’t it rich that Teabag Nation is blasting Obama as a “socialist” while defending torture methods used by Stalin’s NKVD and the Khmer Rouge?
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