Re: Red Cross Torture Report
Taking the Yoo perspective, show me how any of this is illegal with detainees who are effectively non-persons. Look at the autopsy reports. People were getting killed in these interrogations. How is putting someone a leash legally more reprehensible than driving a detainee's core temp down until he dies?
According to the memos, it's perfectly legitimate to keep a detainee from sleeping for 11 days. This was common practice. It's not nearly as shocking as a picture of a guy on a leash, but it's far worse for the individual who's on the receiving end.
Desecrating corpses? So what? These are legal non-persons. Why should their bodies receive more respect after life than during?
-edit-
Oh, and lest I forget, should charges be brought on the people who waterboarded a (most likely) mentally ill detainee 83 times in a single month? According to most everyone except some people with a vested interest in President 43's "enhanced interrogation" regime, Abu Zubidayah was not even remotely sane, unless sane people maintain journals in which multiple personalities discuss their feelings.
Zubaydah turned out to be mentally ill, keeping a diary "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. The book also quotes Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, telling a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality." According to Suskind, this judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," yet two weeks later Bush gave a speech and labeled Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."
So which is worse: Being naked and on a leash when you're mentally disabled, or being waterboarded 83 times in a month while you're mentally disabled?
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