Torture
Clean break
President Obama’s Executive Order on detention and interrogation “prohibits reliance on any Department of Justice or other legal advice concerning interrogation that was issued between September 11, 2001 and January 20, 2009.” Yes, this is really happening.
Eye-raq, Eye-ran
Sarah Palin cannot pronounce the names of the countries she wants to fight. She uses the term “death tax” and claims to represent small-town America. She warns that al-Qaeda continues to threaten and that Obama is “worried someone won’t read them their rights” — an astonishing thing to say after this administration has rendered, tortured and killed prisoners it has
Indictment, not impeachment
I’ve received a number of emails, from musicians and others, crying out in support of Dennis Kucinich’s silly impeachment drive. Says Marc Cooper in the LA Weekly: …[H]ow on earth does any rational being believe that George W. Bush will actually be impeached by a bunch of Democrats who voted for his war in the first place — with fewer
The day in injustice
~ The amazing Dahlia Lithwick on vile torture-memo author John Yoo, whose worst punishment might be “to teach the dreaded 8:30 a.m. Friday class at Berkeley next year.” And to remain on TV as a talking head for years to come. ~ The poor Hu Jia, who has just been sentenced by the Chinese government to over three years in
The Kiriakou file
The ABC News interview with former CIA interrogator John Kirikaou (transcript here and here) seems to sidestep what was reported two days ago in the NY Times: that Abu Zubaydah was giving vital information to the FBI before being tortured by the CIA. Kiriakou’s view, that waterboarding is wrong but it works, also obscures the fact that it isn’t just
Erasing torture
Important detail in this NY Times piece on the CIA torture video coverup. The FBI got Abu Zubaydah to give up Khalid Shaikh Mohammed without using torture; then the CIA began torturing him and it’s far from clear that they got anything. Gov’t officials are cited saying: …Zubaydah, who had been taken to a secret location in Thailand, cooperated with
Torture postscript
I’d meant to comment on White House spokesperson Dana Perino telling the press corps something to the effect that ‘thank goodness we live in a country where these interrogation procedures are being debated openly,’ blah blah. This from an administration that has done everything in its power to keep that debate from happening openly.
Torture TV
There is a CBS crime show called “Without a Trace,” which focuses exclusively on the crime of kidnapping. A recent episode trailer showed someone, apparently a suspected kidnapper or accomplice, bound to a chair. A very nasty-looking knife is held up to the camera. “How far would you go to get the story?” the voiceover demands. Torture as a dramatic