Why are we even debating this?

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According to the Wall Street Journal “The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations”. (Obama Tilts to CIA on Memos, Wall Street Journal, 04/15/09)

Once again … why are we even debating this?

Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner’s head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. Another approved tactic was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

(ibid)

Apparently the “fears” (right … I’m concerned about the “fears” of torturers and torture enablers) focus around alienation of the CIA rank and file and the loss of credibility with foreign intelligence services.

This is one of those issues that could make me ignore a lot of potential good or overlook a lot of potential bad in Obama’s future decisions. Torture is that important in my opinion.

If Obama falls in line with the DC police state status quo on this issue, not only does the CIA lose any credibility with me (you know – a citizen of the United States … apparently second class to other nations’ spook organizations), but Obama does in a huge way too.

We need to clean ourselves of the torturers. They’re immoral and miserable scum.

I don’t see why we are debating this.

4 thoughts on “Why are we even debating this?”

  1. In an email authored and distributed by the ACLU:

    In response to an ACLU lawsuit, the Justice Department just released four memos that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s illegal torture program.

    We’ll have more to say about the horrific content of these memos in the days ahead, but in the meantime we commend the Obama administration for making good on its commitment to transparency. We also commend concerned citizens like you who have supported and fought alongside the ACLU’s legal team in the long struggle to get these crucial memos released.

    I’m still waiting to see how many blacked out lines there are, but the email itself says nothing about too much censorship … we’ll see.

    Now on to the prosecutions?

  2. Huffington Post has the memos in full here.

    And to Obama .. I say simply … FUCK YOU!

    “I have already ended the techniques described in the memos,” Obama said in a written statement released shortly after he arrived on a visit to Mexico.

    However, he said “The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. … We must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.”

    The Obama administration also said it would try to shield CIA employees from “any international or foreign tribunal” — an immediate challenge to Spain, where a judge has threatened to investigate Bush administration officials.

    (Obama shields CIA interrogators from charges, Reuters, 04/16/09)

  3. If you do anything about the torturers you are necessarily going to have to do something about those who ordered the torture and then those who authored the policies that enabled the torture and then those who approved the policies and soon enough you get all the way to the patriotic elected officials (on both sides) who were very much complicit.

    Obama et. al are basically saying that the whole ‘Liberty & Justice for all’ thing was a bad precedent and really it’s best that we just ‘Move Forward’.

  4. [Major General] Taguba, who was pressured to resign by the Bush Administration in 2007 following the 2004 leak of his report detailing abuses by U.S. armed forces in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, declared in the preface of the 2008 Physicians for Human Rights publication “Broken Laws, Broken Lives,” that, “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

    . . .

    Taguba singled out John Yoo, who, as a member of the Office of Legal Counsel, co-authored legal memoranda that produced, in Taguba’s words, “despicable torture and abuse.” Yoo has not expressed remorse for the memos,” Taguba insisted. Rather, Yoo has only stated that he would have spent more time had he known the memos would become public.

    (Gen. Taguba: Accountability for torture does not stop at White House dooor, Harvard Law Review, 04/16/09)

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