http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C860E5C8-E88A-4C53-9E61-500546583075
“This is Torture?”
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, April 21, 2009
SNIPPET: “The Obama administration got one thing right – and a great deal wrong – with its release last week of the so-called “interrogation memos,” a series of legal documents produced by the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel and detailing some of the harsher interrogation methods used by the CIA against high-level al-Qaeda operatives.
To its credit, the administration vetoed the possibility of legal prosecution for either the memos’ Justice Department authors or the CIA personnel who conducted the interrogations, rejecting appeals from the anti-anti-terror Left, most prominently the ACLU, which had sued for the memos’ release. Despite a backlash from its partisan base, the administration has stood firm on that decision, with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel being only the latest figure to affirm that the administration will not be pursuing the “retribution” that many of its supporters demand.
Nevertheless, the administration erred in releasing the memos. The reason has been most compellingly stated by former CIA director Michael Hayden. Hayden points out that disclosing details of U.S. interrogation tactics will only allow terrorist suspects to resist intelligence questioning in the future by revealing “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an al-Qaeda terrorist.” Hayden’s argument holds true even if the tactics described in the memos are no longer used, and even if, as the administration argues, many of the details had previously been made public in reports on detainee treatment by the Red Cross. Interrogation techniques are effective only to the extent that they confound a detainee’s expectations about the kinds of treatment he may receive. By revealing the precise boundaries of that treatment, and by making them official, the administration has made al-Qaeda’s job that much easier.
The administration’s other mistake was to endorse the view, promulgated by the Left, that the techniques described in the memos deserve to be called “torture.” Even a cursory examination indicates otherwise.”
STATE OF THE UNION WITH JOHN KING
Interview With Janet Napolitano; Interview With Senators Klobuchar, Ensign
Aired April 19, 2009 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.”
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/conyers-to-hold-hearings-on-torture-memos-2009-04-21.html
“Conyers to hold hearings on ‘torture’ memos”
By Jared Allen
Posted: 04/21/09 06:07 PM [ET]
SNIPPET: “House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) on Tuesday announced that he will soon hold hearings on the Bush administration’s legal memos justifying the use of numerous enhanced interrogation techniques.
Conyers and other Democrats have labeled as torture the techniques explained in the memos...”