Source:
Raw StoryAs long as CIA agents could convince themselves they were not deliberately inflicting severe pain or suffering on detainees, they were free to do virtually anything in their questioning of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding. Furthermore, the agents' belief they weren't in fact torturing their captives didn't even need to be "reasonable."
These are the implications of a controversial August 2002 memo from the Justice Department to the CIA that was released Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained several internal Bush administration documents it says authorizes the CIA to torture detainees.
“These documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody,” Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a news release. “The Justice Department twisted the law, and in some cases ignored it altogether, in order to permit interrogators to use barbaric methods that the U.S. once prosecuted as war crimes.”
The documents were heavily redacted. For example, the government blacked out 10 full pages of the 18-page August 2002 memo, written by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, before releasing it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Most of the text on the remaining pages was similarly blacked out, but the released version of the Bybee memo does provide some insight.
Read more:
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/ACLU_Memos_authorized_CIA_torture_0724.html
War crimes trials will surely follow for the lawyers!!
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
