Re-Branding Torture

A couple weeks ago, John Negroponte blurted out that America has used the practice of waterboarding, but only a few times. The admission of a torture technique dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, you would think, would have led to Negroponte's sacking, mass protests lasting weeks, and in a Parliamentary system, a no-confidence vote against the current government. Instead it led to a new PR strategy:

Negroponte's comments, which were seen as confirmation that waterboarding had in fact been used before that, were not cleared beforehand and caught White House officials off guard, according to the senior administration official. "It was an accidental disclosure," said the official. It also forced a reassessment of whether the administration should at least publicly confirm Negroponte's remarks, if only to reap whatever public-relations benefit could be derived from the slip.

That third word is "benefit."

For while they're still spooked about defining waterboarding as torture - leading to inanities like DNI Mike McConnell saying "I said waterboarding was torture, but I meant that I don't like water up my nose" - they have no problem confirming these details in public, and even suggesting that we'd use it again:

“It will depend upon circumstances,” spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding “the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider.”

In other words, the message is, "Yeah, we did it, and we'll do it again, and what are you gonna do about it with your laws and regulations?"

This has been a persistent pattern. Faced with deliberately flouting the law, they turn the law into a partisan issue. Anyone who doesn't think America should torture is a dirty liberal who wants to tax our families and endanger our kids. They're so used to politics as a bar fight that they know politicizing everything is a winner - I mean, please, Dick Durbin, an investigation? What are you investigating? They told you they torture, and they're defending it.

The White House on Wednesday defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives. President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said.

A day earlier, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tactic was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world.

The President is telling you that he authorized drowning terror suspects. He still claims it's legal, but his people won't investigate that because it's not true. He's demanding that the guy who wrote the legal opinion legitimizing torture be confirmed by the Senate, making them an accessory to torture. And somehow, there's this belief that this is the only secret that will be revealed. It's not.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.

And the official response from the White House will be "Yeah, we kept a secret detention camp at Guantanamo, and we'd do it again, because we believe in protecting your children, which our critics obviously don't!" And the media nods grimly, and somehow this bullying of the legal system and the Constitution continues, because nobody will punch back and use the handcuffs that are needed to take these criminals out of the White House.

This week a detainee died of natural causes at Guantanamo. It'll be a fate that will likely befall many other detainees. This particular one was accused of being a terrorist by people who held grudges against him and needed the bounty offered by the US government. He was never charged, never allowed to defend himself in court, and we'll never know just what he was guilty of doing. And if questioned, your leaders will tell you that his detention and death was necessary to protect your family. And you'll still believe that you live in a free society.