A reader writes:
I’m no attorney – but it seems to me that Thiessen is describing something far more heinous than has been admitted to before. He is talking about not just a ticking time-bomb scenario, but doing deep psychological damage – breaking someone down until they become compliant. This is no longer morally justifiable, if it ever was. This is not the “24 Hours” of Jack Bauer or the “Dirty Harry” problem. Thiessen is now talking about, and admitting to, institutionalized evil. Abu Ghraib is no longer a few bad apples, even according to the Bush apologists.
I, like many, am very conflicted by Obama’s decision not to pursue prosecution of these war criminals. Today I am left wondering if at some point a fool like Mark Thiessen, emboldened by this administrations inaction, might actually say something stupid that makes prosecution totally unavoidable. Think Jack Nicholson in a “Few Good Men”. I guess it’s the only hope left for justice.
I feel the same way. None of us knows for sure what went on in those torture chambers and black sites, although one has an idea from the fact that the CIA destroyed the tapes to protect themselves. But it has been clear to me for a long time that Abu Ghraib was the rule, not the exception, that the torture program was a system of institutionalized sadism unrelated to any professional interrogation program, and about as far away from the ticking time bomb exception as you can imagine.
It was concocted ad hoc out of Cheney's immediate rage and guilt after 9/11about as coherently as it has been defended post hoc. It's worth your time – if you can stand it – to watch AEI's torture panel, moderated (!) by war criminal, John Yoo. Listening to Thiessen describing waterboarding as non-torture made me physically ill. To listen to a former attorney-general defend the legality of systemic torture and urge its reinstatement also beggars belief.
Few showed up, even at AEI. How, one wonders, can an institution dedicated to freedom also be dedicated to torture?
The Dish 