Torture memos

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I doubt la Pop will learn that until she's had her lily-pale ass pwnd a couple times. Her thinking is yet unsophisticated -- and very clone-y. Won't be pleasant, but it may mature her, and her understanding.

Meanwhile, exerpted:

Yet none of these interrogations were the result of a “rogue” CIA or the mad whims of a “torture presidency.” The relevant Democratic congressional leadership for intelligence — including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and former Sen. Bob Graham — were briefed on CIA operations more than once. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” Porter Goss, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 to 2004 before becoming CIA director, told the Washington Post. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

As for the slippery-slope caterwauling, the opposite is true. The slope toward more torture and abuse has gone up, not down, and it is today more difficult to climb than ever. According to existing law and Justice Department rulings, the practice has been proscribed for several years now — except, that is, for the thousands of U.S. servicemen who’ve been subjected to it by the U.S. military as part of their training. [Emph. mine]

The current debate over legislation to ban waterboarding in all circumstances stinks of political opportunism. Democrats want to claim that Republicans are “pro-torture” if they vote against the legislation. Others are hoping to advance criminal prosecutions of CIA operatives who used the techniques sparingly and with approval from both the White House and Congress, and from both parties.

From here.