老澳门开奖结果

鈥淚f the detainee dies, you鈥檙e doing it wrong.鈥�

Yesterday鈥檚 testimony by former DOD lawyer William Haynes and highlighted how top Department of Defense and CIA officials selected and honed interrogation methods at Guant谩namo by studying the torture techniques 鈥� sometimes called SERE techniques, for 鈥淪urvival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape鈥�) 鈥� that .

The documents are shocking in their frankness. In a working group meeting, CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman argues that the laws against torture are malleable. He encourages his colleagues to exploit any vagueness in the law and declares torture 鈥渋s basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you鈥檙e doing it wrong.鈥�

The rest of the documents are just as jarring. None of the officials seem too concerned about torturing other human beings; nor do they seem concerned about the consequences for U.S. personnel who would be ordered to participate in such interrogations. Instead they worry about backlash and making sure they have documentation to 鈥減rotect us.鈥�

Some of the first documents to highlight the connection to Gitmo were released in conjunction with the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 Torture FOIA lawsuit. But because of their redactions, the documents could only hint at a connection. Today鈥檚 documents show that the adoption of SERE methods was a deliberate process orchestrated by the lawyers who worked directly for Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the CIA. They decided to approve some of the most abhorrent torture techniques used against U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam war.

It鈥檚 clear that the incidents at Abu Ghraib, the reports of abuse at Guant谩namo (the physical proof of which was outlined today in a ), and the abuse that lead to deaths at Bagram were by no means isolated or unconnected incidents. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress positions were not the improvisation of a few low-level soldiers, but a policy developed at the highest levels of government.

That completely blows apart the "few bad apples" argument the Bush administration has used to deflect criticism in the past. Indeed they make clear that there are bad apples that committed heinous crimes and they are at the top of this administration.