“As you told us….”
April 16, 2009, 4:11 pm
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
The WH has released four of the “torture” memos prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel for the CIA.
Here is the first and shortest! (those lawyers must get paid by the word) concerning techniques to be used on Abu Zubaydah. The legal beagles here can clarify, but the constant reiteration of the phrase, “as you [the CIA] told us verbally,” (and they repeat the details of the conditions under which these methods would be deployed), sounds like they are covering their A…. It appears that the OLC didn’t search for independent information. Were they just signing off on the CIA’s say so?
Here:
http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf
All four here:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20090416_memos.pdf
We should all be grateful that, despite some hard pressures 9if NPR is correct) from within the CIA, that tis material reached the public domain.
I agree with the assessment of the OLC.
The contrast is that we are so outraged by Obama speaking at Notre Dame and not at the torture that occurred with this criminal administration. This is why the anti-abortion clamor is really a fraud and 95% political. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-banality-of-evil.html
Surely there must be a way to bring Bush & Company to justice???
It won’t be a U.S. court. It would have to be an international court that can hear the evidence and render verdict under international law.
But international law is only as good as the parties willing to accept its jurisdiction (and, I’d suggest, its possible/probable verdict).
This inept POTUS and his criminal V-P have brought irreparable shame to the United States of America.
And, yet, there are Americans who would oppose any attempt by the international community to try a former U.S. president et al.
The damage has been done. I’d love to see an international trial. Not optimistic.