Torture Slips Out From the Rug

I think we're out from the Reagan Avalanche by today (Help! There're glowing tributes everywhere!), so now we can get back to the real business of picking nits and finding faults. And bringing things back out from under the rug where they were swept.

First, last week's testimony on Capitol Hill with John Ashcroft was truly astounding. You had a sitting Attorney General, the highest lawmaker in the land, refusing to turn over a document to Congress, in other words acting in violation of the Constitution, for the logical and stirring legal reason of "I don't want to." Joe Biden's asshole-ripping of the AG was a sight to behold. "You see, Mr. Ashcroft, the reason we hold to anti-torture treaties is so my son in the military won't get tortured!" (paraphrased from memory) The other point is that these so-called "torture memos" are getting out anyway; all the Senate committee has to do is read the Wall Street Journal. So why continue to be stubborn about it?

In fact, new reports out today show that Ricardo Sanchez, the top US Army official in Iraq, not knew about the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison well in advance, but ordered it, authorized it, and brought it over from Guantanamo Bay. The story basically explains that Sanchez put an approved list of torture methods at the prison guards' disposal, which the guards could then use at any time without having to obtain permission from anyone outside the prison. This is crucial, because it eliminates the need for a chain of command, making it easier after the fact ot blame the abuse on "a few bad apples." In reality, the "few bad apples" theory has to be the most retarded in the history of political scandals, as if these low-level privates smuggled in hoods, leashes, electrical wires, and attack dogs under their uniforms.

Here's the key paragraph, again buried about two-thirds of the way down the page:

The list of interrogation options in the document closely matches a menu of options developed for use on detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay and approved in a series of memos signed by top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In January 2002, for example, Rumsfeld approved the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners there; although officials have said dogs were never used at Guantanamo, they were used at Abu Ghraib.

Then, in April 2003, Rumsfeld approved the use in Guantanamo of at least five other high-pressure techniques also listed on the Oct. 9 Abu Ghraib memo, none of which was among the Army's standard interrogation methods. This overlap existed even though detainees in Iraq were covered, according to the administration's policy, by Geneva Convention protections that did not apply to the detainees in Cuba.

How many different times do you have to say "torture was the policy" before people have to start getting fired? This is going on all over the world. And. if we are to believe Britain's Daily Telegraph, the shitstorm's about to go headlong at 80mph into the fan:

New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House.

The Telegraph understands that four confidential Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly.

(Editor's Note: You gotta love those British idiosyncracies of language: "The Telegraph understands".)

If I was the White House, I'd hire some more lawyers. Or maybe not, since the bar has been lowered so much:

"What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law," Bush told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Savannah, Ga.

Asked if torture is ever justified, Bush replied, "Look, I'm going to say it one more time. ... The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you."

"That oughta comfort you tree-huggers and baby-lovers! We legally inserted lanterns into prisoner's asses! WE weren't breaking the goddamn law! So get off my back!"