WurfWhile

If you haven’t read Josh Marshall’s latest you should. It is a more up-to-date version of his Hill News article (which should also be read). Marshall takes Bush to task for Bush’s recent comment regarding prisoner torture: “The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations.” As Marshall points out, that’s fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far when you’ve been getting legal opinions and memos suggesting that torture is no longer illegal. I am not a lawyer, but the opinions seem to be clear legal sophistry - opinions that would absolve from blame some of the worst offenders that the U.S. has already helped prosecute from other countries. This earlier George Paine piece in Warblogging.com is worth a read in this regard. I too am ashamed that American soldiers and contractors, an American Administration and an American president, have acted in this way. And I have great sympathy for those American (as well as allied) troops trying to do the right thing in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba. They should be supported in doing the right thing, not undermined and put at even greater risk to their person, our mission and our national interests.