The contents of these memos are just astounding and as despicable as the previous memos. But, what’s worse is the reality behind these released memos and the ones released prior to these.
I’m imagining myself in high school. I’m thinking about becoming a lawyer. My mommy and daddy have all the money in the world, enough to send me to a great undergraduate school and then enough to send me to graduate school. I have decent grades and get some scholarship money.
Why do I want to be a lawyer?
Well, why would anyone want to be a lawyer? I would guess some crave power. Some want the glory. Maybe they want to consistently win big cases in America. Maybe they want to be part of the preservation of the rule of law and learn to defend or prosecute well. Maybe they would like to do something good for people and fight for human rights and civil liberties.
So, I go to law school for a few of the above reasons and graduate and then I do what? A couple decades later, I go to work for the President of the United States of America and find myself creating the legal justification for acts that have not been seriously considered since medieval times.
I research law to find out what torture is and what torture isn’t. Is pain torture or is suffering torture? What is intent and if the interrogator tortures and wasn’t thinking he would torture is that torture? And, how long can he be in this box and what amount of time can he be deprived of sleep? And is it okay to drop some ants in on him or are we only able to use butterflies? What about earthworms or maybe even centipedes?
I can’t speak for Jay Bybee, John Yoo, David Addington, Douglas Feith, William J. Haynes, or Stephen Bradbury or anybody else who was in on the writing of this legal justification, but I can say that I would go, “Oh, sh*t, what have I become? And, what have I done?”
Pundits like David Gergen can go on news shows like Anderson Cooper 360 all they want and claim to support finding the truth about torture, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and lawlessness that occurred during the Bush Administration so long as “witch hunts” are not carried out. They can make the claim that you can’t blame those in the CIA for listening to their superiors. But, we cannot allow such wisdom to prevail.
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