He’s working very, very hard to maintain the policy enabling the torture or abuse of military detainees. His latest gambit is a new DoD directive that claims to address the concerns raised by Senator McCain. Money quote from Scott Horton:
No one who has tracked this issue is misled even for a second as to the major goal of this effort: it is to preserve the CIA’s ability to use highly coercive techniques – cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and yes, torture – in their intelligence gathering process. But a careful examination of the new directive shows that it is more an effort to entrench current abusive policies than a recognition of criticisms and resolve to fairly answer them.
A full analysis here.
The Dish 