Political Bloviation

It seems bizarre that it’s necessary to explain why torture is bad. I found this Rolling Stone piece via Andrew Sullivan on the path taken by a 15 year old prisoner from the early months of the action in Afghanistan. What happened to him at the hands of Americans is flatly, obviously torture. They took [...]

Tortures Blowback - washingtonpost.com
THE GHOSTS of interrogations past have come back to haunt the Bush administration. This week, the legal officer supervising the military trials at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissed capital charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, who allegedly would have been the 20th hijacker during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks [...]

Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved ‘Enhanced Interrogation’
They should be in jail, but you know they’ll never see the inside of a court as defendants.

then this should really piss you off. Read the whole thing. It’s a view of the lawlessness that the Bush administration has dragged this nation to. These are not the principles that America was founded on. It shames and demeans us as a people. These people are guilty of numerous crimes and should, but probably [...]

Seems pretty clear, from a seasoned FBI interrogator of al Qeada operatives, Jack Cloonan:
No Torture. No Exceptions. - Jack Cloonan
I worked as a special agent for the FBI’s Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 2002. During that time, my colleagues and I had the chance to question numerous operatives from al-Qaeda. We broke many [...]

No Torture. No Exceptions
The Washington Monthly sets out to end the debate on torture by presenting a series of short essays from people across the political spectrum on why torture is, in fact, bad. The real tragedy here is that is necessary to make this point in the USA in the 21st century.
Here’s a quote [...]

Bush Poised to Veto Waterboarding Ban - washingtonpost.com

Crooks and Liars » Countdown: John McCain’s Tortured Logic And Flip Flop On Torture
After courageously opposing the Bush Administration’s  love affair with torture, the Straight Talker himself voted against a Bill to outlaw torture. The only real satifiying explaintion for this is that he sold his soul to win the approval of the torture loving [...]

Can’t he just say something like, “It’s wrong, illegal and diametrically opposed to American values” and be done with it?
Mukasey Demurs on Waterboarding - New York Times
“Given that waterboarding is not part of the current program and may never be added to the current program, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to [...]

US Appellate Court, DC circuit holds that innocent people held as prisoners and tortured in US custody are essentialy a sort of judicial unperson.
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/11/2008 | In voiding suit, appellate court says torture is to be expected
The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 [...]

PZ talks about the real value of torture. It’s not information gathering.
Pharyngula: Torture — what’s it good for?
Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population. If you want it widely known that your ruling regime is utterly ruthless and doesn’t care about individuals, all you have to do is [...]