The whole “torture” thing makes me shrug.
After George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA in 1976-1977, under Gerald Ford, I about fell off my chair laughing when some journalist did a retrospective and said that, “While he was head of the CIA, there were no *covert* operations.”
Of course there were covert operations. But there were no leaks about these covert operations. Nobody talked. Nobody blabbed. Most of congress didn’t even know about them.
Why? Because they were secret. They are supposed to remain secret, or they are no longer covert.
The same with torture, and detention of terrorists. Under W. Bush, Gitmo was a big red herring. The real interrogations were done in other countries and nobody ever heard about them. Then, when they were done, they would ship off their subjects to Gitmo, where “the usual suspects” would whine about them and try to interfere.
A day late and a dollar short.
Properly, the terrorists with any useful information should have been shipped to some foreign stink hole, squeezed dry and then liquidated. No reason to keep any of them around.
No particular records kept of them, just their information forwarded for analysis.
“They are supposed to remain secret, or they are no longer covert”
Nothing remains secret with the airhead-in-chief calling the shots. Never forget he told the world that a Seal Team 6 had killed Bin Laden. He strutted around like he was the leader of the mission and told the world exactly how it went down. He endangered the lives of every member of the mission and should have been brought up on charges and impeached. A few months later a chopper is shot out of the sky carrying members of the team. Don’t know how many lost their lives, but it was a lot. All because this ignorant SOB ran his mouth about the mission. I’m reminded of the old WW2 motto “loose lips sink ships”.
Of course, as enemy spies and saboteurs out of uniform, as I understand it, we could have done just about anything with them that we pleased.
When German terrorists landed at Amagansett in 1942, it took six weeks from the arrests to the electric chair. This six weeks included the US Supreme Court review of their cases.
I agree completely that indefinite detention at Guantanamo was a farce and a strong sign of our cowardice. They should have had monthly hangings of the prisoners they were finished with, to encourage the others.