Another Admission: Okay, So We Tortured

[L. Coyote]

January 14, 10:47 AM
Another Admission: Okay, So We Tortured
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004186


Susan J. Crawford served as general counsel to the Army for Ronald Reagan and as Dick Cheney’s inspector general while he was secretary of defense, then landed an appointment to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. According to Professor David Glazier, a prominent practitioner and scholar of the court’s jurisprudence, she was the most reliable and consistent pro-government vote on that court, authoring less than her fair share of opinions and focusing instead on dissents in which she carped at her colleagues for occasionally ruling in favor of service members. In short, she was the perfect vehicle for Bush-style justice for the Gitmo detainees.

She was picked by her friend David Addington to manage the show-trial spectacular in Guantánamo. And now that it appears likely Obama will issue a stand-down order to the Gitmo commissions immediately after taking office, she’s eager to set the record straight about her final act. Yet she went about it in a strange way. Attempting to explain why she failed to approve charges against the most obvious defendant (her picks instead included chauffeurs and a child), she told Bob Woodward, “We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution ...........

[ThomWV]

1. You know, nobody realized that Katrina was the beginning of the end at the time

When it was happening no one realized that Katrina would be the very big straw that broke the public's back. I think this refusal to refer will be the spark that lights the fires of understanding just how heinous the Bush years were that I certainly hope is on the way. If nothing else it looks like the sort of thing that would be used as evidence against his Administration should some international court go looking for war crimes and those who committed them.