Apr

21

Doubts Dispelled

Filed Under Uncategorized 

I went to be after posting on the release of the torture memos feeling clear about things. I have been thinking about this for a long time. I have always been clear that abandoning legal protections for prisoners and breaking from established international norms like the Geneva Convention was a mistake of biblical proportions, but I never fully resolved myself with the idea that our interrogation practices since 2002 amounted to a regime of systemic torture. I am now fully resolved with this idea.

If I had any doubts lingering, they were swept away when I went to the NY Times and was greeted with this headline:

Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects

Emptywheel has a great post breaking this down.

Despite all the legal justifications and euphimisms, what we have is a carefully crafted program of torture. Waterboarding is a war crime and the United States has prosecuted it as such. The architects of this program must be denounced and held to account.

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