It's simple, Larry. The whole house of cards is built on George W. Bush. If it is ever acknowledged and accepted that waterboarding is torture, the inevitable conclusion is that Bush must not only be impeached, he must be arrested and tried for war crimes.

There are a lot of 'very reasonable' people in this country who believe doing that would create a Constitutional crisis that could destroy our country.

And then there's those who believe that failing to impeach and imprison these war criminals has already created a Constitutional crisis that is destroying our country.

Waterboarding is torture. It is cruel and unusual. It is unconstitutional, illegal and immoral.

But discussing torture is like discussing blisters when the disease is smallpox. It is a symptom. It is a manifestation of a terminal disease. We could as well discuss signing statements, the unitary executive, cronyism/nepotism, the housing market, global warming, a "defense" budget larger than the rest of the world combined, the politicization of the DOJ, media homogeneity, or the growing disparity among the haves and the have-nots.

The Bush regime has committed unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral acts in a variety of known and unknown ways. It differs little from the old Soviet Union except in referent symbolism used to justify repressive techniques(e.g., "workers" and "freedom").

Will the recent torture revelations sufficiently undermine their political/institutional hegemony?

Doubtful.

Since Bush's inauguration, we've seen increasingly extreme and even bizarre explanations used to justify the unjustifiable. It's difficult to see Kiriakou's appearance on several mainstream networks as anything but a continuation of this process. It's nothing more than a justification for torture ("It works!") albeit pitched as a moral quandary ("It works ... but it's terrible.")

I suppose this is a step away from "We do not torture", but it has the same effect.

Yet, with occasional exception, none of our "opposition" candidates seems willing to claim the traditions and philosophy of the Constitution as their platform. Instead they grant that our Reign War of Terror must continue until "we" destroy all threats to civilization.

Those invested in perpetuating the current political structure of this country can and will complain all they want about the Bush regime because they benefit from this regime as the left foot benefits from the right foot.

The best we can do now, especially with the internet and websites like this, is document the disease so that future generations can learn from our mistakes.

MW

The CIA turned to the military and reverse SERE for enhanced interrogation where psychologists assisted. What the psychologists involved in these programs seem to have neglected is that many of the suspects were already suffering from mental illness or were subsequently driven into insanity by the torture.

I believe Suskind makes the case in The 1% Solution that Abu Zubaydah was mentally ill and confessed to all kinds of wild plots after the waterboarding (something Kiriakou ignores). IIRC, the suspect from Lodi, Ca. was mentally ill as was the one who was going to take down the Brooklyn Bridge and many others. Apparently, Padilla was not mentally ill going into confinement but came out that way.

I wonder if the tapes reveal Zubaydah as the out-of-the-loop lunatic that he was? Anyway, the media is ignoring this and the APA should be protecting these sick people from being exploited as terrorist masterminds instead of helping torture them.

in re: Torture in IRAQ

Lawyers for a British resident who the US government refuses to release from Guantanamo Bay have identified the existence of photographs taken by CIA agents that they say show their client suffered horrific injuries under torture.
The photographic evidence will be vital to clear Binyam Mohammed, 27, who the Americans want to bring before a Military Commission on charges of terrorism, say his lawyers.
Last week it emerged that Britain had negotiated the release of four detainees who have British residence status but Mr Mohammed, who speaks with a London accent, and at least three others are being held back.
In a letter sent to the Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Britain is urged to ask the US to stop the CIA destroying the pictures.
Clive Stafford-Smith, the legal director of Reprieve representing Mr Mohammed, said that he also knows the identity of the agents who were present when his client was allegedly beaten and tortured. Writing to Mr Miliband, he said: "Given the opportunity, we can prove that the evidence was the fruit of torture. Indeed, we can prove that a photographic record was made of this by the CIA. Through diligent investigation we know when the CIA took pictures of Mr Mohammed's brutalised genitalia, we know the identity of the CIA agents who were present including the person who took the pictures (we know both their false identities and their true names), and we know what those pictures show."

When I first went to report the American war against Vietnam, in the 1960s, I visited the Saigon offices of the great American newspapers and TV companies, and the international news agencies.
I was struck by the similarity of displays on many of their office pinboards. "That's where we hang our conscience," said an agency photographer.
There were photographs of dismembered bodies, of soldiers holding up severed ears and testicles and of the actual moments of torture. There were men and women being beaten to death, and drowned, and humiliated in stomach-turning ways. On one photograph was a stick-on balloon above the torturer's head, which said: "That'll teach you to talk to the press."
The question came up whenever visitors caught sight of these pictures: why had they not been published? A standard response was that newspapers would not publish them, because their readers would not accept them. And to publish them, without an explanation of the wider circumstances of the war, was to "sensationalise".

It's all a bit much

Pro-torture conservatives (esp. Cheney) needed John Kiriakou badly. The military and respected former CIA agents have repeatedly come out against waterboarding and it's efficacy. Also, the testimony given to the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 8th was particularly damning.

So now this guy come out with his 'waterboarding works' spiel just as Congress adds language to an omnibus spending bill that would outlaw the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations? Huh.

...the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. Bill Moyers

I saw the guy and the ABC interview (which the next day was rebroadcast in part on BBC News). It instantly struck me that this was propagandistic information that served the administration's purpose of muddying the moral waters about waterboarding if not all of the alleged "enhanced" techniques for interrogation.

Larry, can you explain why this guy surfaced at this time, what the purpose of his sudden appearance really is, and who would be pushing him out front on this? It just struck me as very odd that a retired CIA guy would suddenly come forward on his own to express his ambivelance about this subject. Now if he were strongly in favor or opposed one can see it, but this wishy washy position just struck me as very odd indeed. Can you enlighten us on this?

Thanks!