Rhetorical question

[pecunium]

So, torture mongers and apologists explain that torture (according to the sources they choose to believe) works.

They also say that because it works, and it saves lives, we need to use it.

We are also told that it is only used when the case is so strong that it justifies the moral quandaries of little things like breaking the law and violating the norms of the civilised world and the principles we used to hold countries like the USSR and PRC accountable for, because such things were evil.

It is further explained that because such careful decisions are made those who engage in torture can always depend on the courts to vindicate them. They will just explain that it was needful, they were certain the guy had the info, he gave it up, and lives were saved.

The, inevitable, result, so they say, is the jury will acquit.

Given all of those things; one wonders why the CIA felt it had to destroy the evidence, and committ a completely different crime, not one against people but against the rule of law.

Comments

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

This excuse to commit treason is straight from the lips of Robert Novak. But if treason is to be excused, then I guess excusing torture is no stretch.

Nitpick: It wasn't treason. No one was charged for treason. No one was even charged for disclosing a covert agent's identity. The only person charged was Scooter Libby, for lying to an investigator – the same crime Martha Stewart was charged with.

Huh? Details of legal interrogation are no secret.

Oh? Where do I find them described? Cite your sources.
I also note an article here (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/015994.php) where Ed Morissey discusses the question of whether waterboarding crosses the line into torture. An additional point was made:

Captain's Quarters readers will remember Mike the SEAL, who has served this nation in several capacities, including as a decades-long member of the elite commando team as well as a first responder in his community. Mike wrote several extensive posts here at Captain's Quarters while overseas in various capacities in 2004 and 2005. I'm fortunate enough to count Mike as a personal friend for the last several years, and I know him to be a man of courage, honesty, and absolute integrity. For obvious reasons, I will not identify him any further.

Mike agreed to an interview with me on a wide range of topics regarding the waterboarding issue, primarily because the entire debate has angered him. Interrogation techniques both in training and in handling terrorists remains classified for good reasons, Mike insists. "For people to discuss what goes on during interrogation in SERE school is also a breach of classified information," Mike told me, "especially the discussion of the waterboard."

It needs to remain confidential in order to maintain the effectiveness of the training. At the conclusion of SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) school attendees are ordered not to discuss the events and practices of the training even with other members of the military, because the entire exercise is intended to prepare students for surprises and the unexpected.

So the details of what goes on during interrogation during SERE are classified, and this isn't even a "real" interrogation. Maybe what goes on during actual interrogations is unclassified, but that's something for you to show me, by showing where I can read the details for myself.

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For the record, I note Ed (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016247.php) provides a bit more detail on the circumstances, including the fact that

...Rodriguez [chief of the clandestine service] decided for himself what his legal obligations required in terms of retention. Despite the expressed will of Congress, the White House, and the CIA's own attorneys, Rodriguez destroyed the tapes -- even though his own boss had gone on record as demanding their retention. Afterwards, the agency didn't bother to inform anyone of the destruction for almost a year, and lied about the one-time existence of the tapes to federal prosecutors working on the Moussaoui case.

It appears the tapes had been subpoena'd, in which case, someone should be in deep trouble.
My point is merely that the CIA may well have reasons to keep the details of what goes on during an interrogation secret, reasons besides Terry's hobby horse.

[pip-r-lagenta.livejournal.com]

MaryMotherOfGod! Is this guy kidding?

Karl writes: "It wasn't treason. No one was charged for treason. No one was even charged for disclosing a covert agent's identity. The only person charged was Scooter Libby, for lying to an investigator – the same crime Martha Stewart was charged with."

Only to the most vile criminal-dirtbag is it not treason. To the rest of us, it was the kind of war-time treason that gets the person who did it hanged by the neck, and they also hang by the neck everybody who helped him to do it.

Scooter Libby got a Presidential commutation of his prison sentence because he successfully blocked the investigation that would have resulted in the death by hanging of Cheney and Turd Blossom.

Anyone who values the Rule of Law is upset that our leaders willingly commit treason for cheap political advantage.

In response to my stating the obvious fact that the "details of legal interrogation are no secret", Karl writes: "Oh? Where do I find them described? Cite your sources."

Jeez, Karl, crack a book. I did a Google search on "Criminal justice" "Interrogation techniques" and I got 49,000 hits. How bone, stick, stone ignorant do you have to be not to know that any U.S. Junior College, State College, or University of any reasonable quality will have "Criminal justice" courses that teach "Interrogation techniques" using textbooks and everything.