May the truth set us free on torture debate, with some cautions (Peoria Journal Star)

[struggle4progress]

... the heat has been ratcheted up considerably the last few weeks for a formal inquiry, following an International Red Cross report that concluded the U.S. engaged in torture of terrorism suspects; the recent release of Justice Department memos authorizing tougher interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, among the first of the prized al-Qaida leaders to be captured; the declassification of a previous congressional investigation that found evidence of the green light for the military's treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo coming from the highest levels of the Pentagon; and reporting by the New York Times and others that there was bipartisan awareness of these Korean War-era, communist torture techniques in 2002, with few if any objections raised by anyone in the executive or legislative branches.

Some very prominent names have surfaced in those reports - former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; former CIA chief George Tenet; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Department of Justice attorneys John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury; current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, then being briefed as a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee; and of course former Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush ...

<on the one hand yada yada on the other hand blah blah blah>

We should be willing to let Dick Cheney testify as to how it was necessary - and not torture - to waterboard two top al-Qaida operatives a reported 266 times to get the information he claims saved thousands of American lives. The former vice president seems eager enough to talk about it.

And we should be just as willing to let Ali Soufan, the former FBI agent who participated in the initial interrogations of Zubaydah, disagree, as he did in a New York Times op-ed recently, writing that the interrogation policy was "un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security" ...

http://www.pjstar.com/opinions/x227668070/Our-View-May-the-truth-set-us-free-on-torture-debate-with-some-cautions

[thedeanpeople]

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