"If they die, you're doing it wrong"

While I'm waxing political - two more Republican administration tidbits to chew on:

From CNN.COM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group.

The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The detainees were never charged with crimes.

"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003.

and, nicely timed, from MSN.COM:


A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators.

Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

(Both articles can, and should, be clicked on and read in their entirety.)

Interestingly enough,
some Pentagon officials acknowledged that the proposed methods faced opposition at the time from experts in military and international law. Among them was Mark Fallon, deputy commander of the Defense Department's Criminal Investigation Task Force. He warned in an October 2002 e-mail to Pentagon colleagues that the techniques under discussion would "shock the conscience of any legal body" that might review how the interrogations were conducted.

"This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of," Fallon wrote. He added: "Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this."

Consider this - it's 6 years later and, hopefully, we can close this page in history as soon as possible. And look back in shame and sorrow on what was done while vowing to never again allow a president or a party to command so much and give back so little.