Posted by Phil Giraldi on 08/25/09 10:53 AM   [Newer: Empire Is Not Cheap and It's Not Even Very Safe] [Older: Controlling the Internet]

It was good to learn that Attorney General Eric Holder will be going after CIA torturers...or will he?  Holder has appointed a special prosecutor to look into "alleged detainee mistreatment."  If that sounds like half a loaf, it should.  The prosecutor will look into specific instances where it is suspected that the interrogators exceeded established procedures.  As the "established procedures" authorized by the Justice Department permitted a number of measures including both waterboarding and physical torture that did not involve organ failure it would seem that the investigation will only look at bizarre deviations from that norm, including threatening to kill one's family or rape one's mother, beating, shooting, and leaving suspects chained to the floor to die from the cold, as actually occurred.  There is absolutely no mandate to go after senior agency officers and White House and Justice Department officials who made the decisions and authorized the techniques.  If the investigation conforms to the Abu Ghraib golden standard, a few small fish will be caught and hung out to dry to show that the Obama is Administration is serious while all the big players will dance off to enjoy their pensions and book royalties. - Phil Giraldi, American Conservative Defense Alliance 

Posted 08/25/09 10:47 AM Isomies Mechanicsville, VA

You know, I agree that torture is wrong, besides being illegal, and that we should condemn it, expose it and never again allow our government to participate in it. However, I think the way that the media has spun it kind of misses the point. I think everyone can agree that torturing people incites violence against us and fuels terrorism. But, how many newspaper articles talk about the anonymous Predator drones dropping bombs all over Afghanistan and Pakistan? I remember one week after Obama was inaugurated, an unmanned drone fired a missile into a building in Pakistan, killing 26 people I believe. It barely registered as a blip on the BBC, let alone in U.S. news. Doesn't twenty six dead people probably incite a little more hatred than torturing some guy? I'd venture to guess that nameless "collateral damage" fuels much more hatred, resentment and rage than anything else. Just because we don't talk about it on the news here doesn't mean that the family members and neighbors don't grieve and swear to enact revenge on the United States. Just because our media sloughs it off does not mean that they do. The hundreds of thousands of unnamed collateral damage caused by the occupation are much more relevant to the issue of blow back than torture is, IMHO. My 2 c

Posted 08/25/09 12:29 PM jwfox1965 Las Vegas, NV

"the investigation will only look at bizarre deviations from that norm" Bizarre deviations from the norm? the NORM being water boarding and physical torture ? what kind of barbaric, savages have we become?

Posted 08/25/09 1:58 PM Champion Of Liberty Pembroke Pines, FL

THEY should be publicly tortured and humiliated. Pigs.

Posted 08/25/09 4:26 PM Glenn Cumming, GA

The U.S. Congress - President - Supreme Court -- an All-American Axis of Evil.