Dick Cheney says torture worked. Now we have the (redacted) CIA memos which, he claimed, would prove his case. Only they don't prove his case. So now Cheney's language has changed. Now he says the people who were tortured provided good information–without saying it was the torture that produced the info. Fancy footwork on his part:
"The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda."
(emphasis mine)
Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent puts a finer point on it:
"Throughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations."
The memos offer a fascinating look at how "humint" (human intelligence) as the spooks call it, works. They are worth reading for that alone. The memos discuss traditional methods of intelligence gathering. They do not seem to discuss torture, which certainly allows for plentiful fudging of the facts. Therefore it is quite damning that Cheney, who has repeatedly told bald-faced lies (that Hussein, for instance, was in league with al Qaeda, a repeatedly debunked claim based primarily on one supposed meeting), has backed off his own claim with such careful syntax.
Glenn Greenwald says it best after his long accounting of abuses practiced in our name (as revealed by documentation):
"The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle — all things that we have always condemend as "torture" and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies ("torture means. . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering . . .") — reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives."
Also well worth noting today: Video and trancript release of whistleblower extraordinaire Sibel Edmonds' testimony claiming treasonous behavior by many high-level officials and members of Congress of both parties. The transcript is available through the National Whistleblowers Center here, and video (approximately 5 hours of it) is available here.
AN END TO NONSENSE:
The ilk, in his natural habitat.
ALSO:
Court Holds in Hamdan that Geneva Convention Applies to Detainees
The Supreme Court issued a much anticipated decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld this morning. The case addressed the Bush Administration's power to establish military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees. Marty Lederman, writing on SCOTUSBlog, looked to what he saw as the "enormous significance" of the decision.
The Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva applies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"-including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment.
