DoJ: Torture Sometimes Legal

(10 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

From the NY Times: Letters Give C.I.A. Tactics a Legal Rationale: In response to a congressional request, the Department of Justice has written a letter claiming that it is sometimes legal to torture. Well, the NY Times hesitates to use the actual word T.O.R.T.U.R.E. Here’s how they say it, you know, in language that befits the grey lady. Ahem.

The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.

“Otherwise be prohibited under international law.” Translation: Illegal.

The way they justify this criminality is to appeal to a highly dubious situational ethics; one that is based on a false premise–namely, that torture is effective for information extraction. It is not. Even that aside. No given situation overrules legally or morally the proscription on torture. Not so per the BushCo Department of “Justice.”

“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,” said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.

Oh, yeah, and even though Shrub issued an executive order to restrict the “techniques” that actually meant, you know, that many of the “techniques are permitted.

The executive order that Mr. Bush issued in July 2007 was a further restriction, in response to a Supreme Court ruling in 2006 that holding that all prisoners in American captivity must be treated in accordance with Common Article 3 … That order specifies some conduct that it says would be prohibited in any interrogation, including forcing an individual to perform sexual acts, or threatening an individual with sexual mutilation. But it does not say which techniques could still be permitted.

See? Doesn’t that make sense?

You see, torture is illegal and the U.S. doesn’t torture. Unless it’s in the name of national security, then you can torture, even though it’s not torture, because we don’t torture, and national security changes the acts from being torture to legal methods of interrogation. See?

And what’s the security effect for the US and the troops? Here’s how Senator Wyden (D-OR), who requested the clarifications, sums up the situation, pointing to BushCo’s “sliding scale” in applying interrogation rules:

“The cumulative effect in my interpretation is to put American troops at risk,” Mr. Wyden said.

You know what to do, people. Pester your congresscritters.