Torture memo writer John Yoo hired by Philly Inquirer as columnist http://tinyurl.com/pgoecl

Meanwhile Jay Bybee sits on the Ninth Circuit Court and writes 'legal paper' of the sort that could imprison someone for crimes far less heinous. http://tinyurl.com/cob2df

Any intel is 'actionable' intel to SOME people...

Especially when one wants to start a worthless (unquoted intentional) war.

Juan Cole @ Informed Comment this morning:

Al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was captured trying to escape from Afghanistan in late 2001. He was sent to Egypt to be tortured, and under duress alleged that Saddam Hussein was training al-Qaeda agents in chemical weapons techniques.

It was a total crock, and alleged solely to escape further pain. Al-Libi disavowed the allegation when he was returned to CIA custody.

But Cheney and Condi Rice ran with the single-source, torture-induced assertion and it was inserted by Scooter Libby in Colin Powell's infamous speech to the United Nations.

http://tinyurl.com/qdpmga

Thank you, Lt. Col. I hope that as a nation we will learn that even Krauthammer's slippery 'It's usually best not to torture' position logically leads to a blanket prohibition.

'America stands firm for not torturing... much...'?? It just doesn't work, unless we go all the way, with our Constitution. Before we let torture advocates wrap abuses in the flag, wave a hand at those it may have saved, let's ask how many people AREN'T walking around because Cheney's dark-side war became a recruiting tool for our enemies? It's a big number.

But it's necessary to listen uncritically to Krauthammer, to acknowledge that he's worked the issue for a usable justification, constructs an argument that has many adherents. And then to see past his argument to his insistent conclusion:

"Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation."

Loud and clear, he says the Lt. Col is akin to a conscientious objector, unfit for higher command. Team Krauthammer DEMANDS agreement to the NECESSITY OF TORTURE from you, me, Petraeus, Gates, Obama. Charles dismisses all who can't see torture as a DUTY as unfit for line command and high office. QED

Lest anyone think this is academic or old business, consider that Special Operatin Command's secret efforts in Iraq have been specifically linked to CONVICTIONS for abusive interrogation at Camp Nama in Iraq, and that JSOC's McChrystal has now been put in 4-star command of a ramped up war in Afghanistan.

On a related topic, I'd like to hear Mr. Ricks (or expert opinion) on Woodward's thesis that McChrystal-JSOC's kinetic war of elimination in Iraq was perhaps the biggest part of security gains made during Petraeus 'surge'. My meager direct sources support that idea. I'm sure Tom's got sources that can put it in perspective.

Torture has consequences for more than just those two victims; it affects even those who have to witness it, as the cases of Arabic-speaking interrogators, Alyssa Peterson & Kayla Williams, make clear:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003965876

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003966494

Wait a second... we can "Torture" our own personnel in training (ie. SERE), yet we cannot use the same methods for the enemy? Wouldn't this mean that we have been committing heinous crimes against our own troops for years? If the techniques described in the CIA "Torture" memos are truely illegal and immoral, then they should not be administered on ANYONE.

As a graduate of SERE, I don't think the techniques applied to me (Identical to the techniques described in the memos) constituted torture. Were they extremely uncomfortable? Yes. Did they significantly increase my stress level? Yes.

I think what Americans are going through is guilt over the discomfort they feel over their exposure to the enhanced interrogation techniques. If these techniques are criminal, make them criminal for all.

On a side note, there will be many people who may asert that students in SERE "know that its training" therefore lessoning the impact of the techniques applied to them, as opposed to a war time detainee. The only way to show them how wrong they are is to invite them to undergo the same training as we do... after two weeks of sleep deprivation and "torture" techniques applied multiple times, the difference between training and reality is nonexistant.

On another note, the LTC's letter above wrongly includes the Abu G scandal with the torture issue. Clearly, the MPs abused the Abu G detainees, creating a set back for the United States on the same scale as the battle of Kasserine Pass in WW II. It was not torture, nor were they ordered to do it. Again, I am NOT defending their actions nor those of the officers in charge of the prison, but it should not be lumped in with he torture debate.

IDMAJ: "It was not torture, nor were they ordered to do it."

Janet Karpinski claimed the CIA was running the show and if so the GIs must have assumed they were operating under orders cleared through THEIR OWN chain of command.

That would make it disinformation fed to our own soldiers who believed they WERE acting under orders, legitimate or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/opinion/13divoll.html?_r=1

This is coming from a professor at the Naval Academy....

My read is that it is an encouraging call for a review of procedural limits that are restrictive upon the duties of the Legislature in preventing executive criminal activity. Activity that occurred after 911 in the House and Senate appear to have been more in the line of abrogation than assumption of Constitutional responsibility. Personally for the Gang of Four it was an abrogation of ethics and courage.

Surprised though, this is really something coming out of an institution always on the succor to the Congress.

Wish Ms. Divoll would read it in front of the Stockdale memorial.

Torture has two victims? Please. I suppose then one could say the fire bombing of Dresden was for all practical purposes an attempt to torture an entire population into 'giving something up' and therefore in a sense the crews of those planes and the officers who ordered the tactics were war criminals whose souls were lost to evil. If I don't believe what I'm doing is wrong then how am I to be corrupted by it? Of course I can be, that's obvious, but I won't necessarily be. I can kick in a door in Ramadi in the middle of the night and see a flash of metal in the shadows and fire instinctively and then when the lights are turned on find I've killed a harmless old woman - am I evil? I tell myself that war is an imperfect violence focused for the purposes of getting someone to do something they don't want to do and therefore I'm not evil - and essentially I'd be right. The torture question is full of flawed logic and definitions and motives on both sides.

Laws give the illusion that actions are understood, and it's a necessary illusion - but I think Kafka demonstrated just how absurd an illusion it can be. We want things to be black and white because that simplifies our choices - but the reality is the world is full of grey. As a somewhat free and open society that tends to respect the rights of individuals we have a fairly good notion of what torture is, but less so of what it isn't and it would be helpful to the debate if people would stop declaiming as if that weren't the case. Drawing and quartering? I think we can all agree that's torture - a real threat of death and disfigurement, pretty sure that's torture. Sleep deprivation? Throwing someone up against a wall? You can really sit there and say that a well meaning person who argues a difference between harsh interrogation and torture has been corrupted to evil?

The good Lt Colonel intimates a clash between Kant and Hume but doesn't pursue it - and for good reason: Hume wins. We want to believe in absolutes but reality is far too bitter a thing for that - and the reality is whoever was in charge of the White House on 9/11 - I think we can all accept at this point it was Cheney - sensed an existential threat to the very idea of America and that any show of weakness could prove fatal and from that animus you get enhanced interrogation techniques. It wasn't evil incarnate - it was a perfectly reasonable response. Flawed? Yes, of course - just as the reasoning that is repelled by it is flawed as well.

It's telling how these chicken-hawks who've never served in the military tend to be the most vocal pro-torture advocates whereas you have seasoned soldiers and other professionals arguing against such transgressions.

I must admit I once bought into the whole ticking time-bomb scenario popularised by the 24 show. It takes sustained argument by true experts to counter the dangerous and corrosive seed planted by fearmongers and Hollywood.

Furthermore, it will take prosecutions to offset the precedent Cheney & Co set. It's not about vengefulness but a simple matter of constitutional "hygiene".

Without America quitting this regression into pre-enlightenment practices and mindsets, the unity of the West, so critical in my mind to our future, will never be what it out to be. For here in Europe, torture is still viewed with absolute abhorrence.

My son is career military. I never thought I would see the day that members of our government or our military made excuses for torturing other human beings. Torture, if continued, will corrupt both our military and our society. The fact that so many prominent people excuse it, shows that torture already has, to some extent, corrupted us.I thank this National Guard officer for standing up for what is right. I don't want my son to be part of any organization that engages in such despicable practices. I did not raise him to be morally destroyed.