Torture, Continued

Comey "was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Mr. Addington." The result? "'On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,' said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington."

Lara Jakes Jordan writes for the Associated Press this morning that White House Press Secretary Dana Perino "denied reports that a secret Justice Department opinion in 2005 cleared the way for the return of painful interrogation tactics or superseded U.S. anti-torture law."

But consider what Perino actually said: Nothing remotely specific.

"'This country does not torture,' [Perino] told reporters. "It is a policy of the United States that we do not torture and we do not.' . . .

"Asked about the story Thursday, Perino confirmed existence of the Feb. 5, 2005, classified opinion but would not comment on whether it authorized specific practices, such as head-slapping and simulated drowning. She said the 2005 opinion did not reinterpret the law."

For more background, see my columns from last fall: Torture Is All in the Subtext; Bush Gets His Way; Talking About Torture; Torture, By Any Other Name; and my July 23 column, Do We Torture?

Blogger Reaction

Yale law professor Jack Balkin blogs: "The twisting of law by the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales is far worse than Gonzales' misleading testimony in front of Congress about the U.S. Attorney scandal. That scandal dominated the headlines for weeks. This one deserves far more searching press scrutiny. Despite the fact that Congress repeatedly passed legislation stating that it was illegal for U.S. personnel to engage in torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the Justice Department repeatedly redefined the terms of these prohibitions so that the CIA could keep doing exactly what the Justice Department had authorized to do before. Gonzales treated all of these laws as if they made no difference at all, as if they were just pieces of paper. . . .

"An essential component of the rule of law is transparency. The laws must be knowable, not only so that people can structure their behavior with fair warning, but also to prevent government officials from engaging in abuses of power. The Bush Administration has used the shibboleths of terrorism and national security to violate this basic principle.

"The Administration said, 'Trust us.' And then this is what they did in secret."

Georgetown University law professor Marty Lederman blogs: "I am increasingly confident that when the history of the Bush Administration is written, this systematic violation of statutory and treaty-based law concerning fundamental war crimes and other horrific offenses will be seen as the blackest mark in our nation's recent history -- not only because of what was done, but because the programs were routinely sanctioned, on an ongoing basis, by numerous esteemed professionals -- lawyers, doctors, psychologists and government officers -- without whose approval such a systematized torture regime could not be sustained."

Blogger Digby writes: "I am still stunned that we are talking about the United States of America issuing dry legal opinions about how much torture you are allowed to inflict on prisoners. Stories like this one are the very definition of the banality of evil --- a bunch of ideologues and bureaucrats blithely committing morally reprehensible acts apparently without conscience or regret."

Blogger Hilzoy writes: "The techniques in question are repugnant. But in many ways, the administration's disregard for the law is worse. When your policies violate treaties you have signed and laws that are on the books, you are not supposed to come up with some clever way of explaining that appearances to the contrary, what you're doing is not illegal at all. You're supposed to stop doing it. When Congress decides to pass a law banning 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment, you are supposed to stop engaging in such treatment, not to redefine 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' so that it doesn't apply to anything you want to do."