What Will We Do About the Matter of Torture?

As the once-taciturn Dick Cheney gallops from cable news show to cable news show yammering about how many American lives would have been lost if the Bush Administration hadn’t ditched its morals and its regard for international law in order to enhancedly interrogate, the discussion about what if anything will be done about said interrogating continues to heat up.

NOTE: I really, really, really hope the White House releases all the paperwork that Cheney says he wants released.

UPDATE: It looks like at least some of that material is indeed going to be released in the not terribly distance future.

THE POLITICAL RISKS OF TORTURE HEARINGS

Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle has a story that looks at the risks of having hearings on the Bush Administration’s interrogations policy—and the risks of not having them.

Of interest are the Chron’s couple of sidebars, one that details possible solutions to this political push-pull, and another that shows what California Dem politicians favor which torture probe solution.

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THE CRUELTY OF DENYING SLEEP

A front page article in Sunday’s LA Times talks extensively about how and why sleep deprivation, as an interrogation technique, is WAY creepier than we might have originally thought.

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LAWYERS WHO AUTHORIZED TORTURE DISGRACED THEIR PROFESSION

Over the weekend Ted Sorensen, former special counsel to US President John F. Kennedy, gave a commencement address at the University of Nebraska in which he said that the lawyers who authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques had “disgraced not only their country but their profession.”

And then the 81-year-old Sorenson really got irritated. Here’s just one small clip from the body of the speech:

One apologist for those mindless Justice Department opinions authorizing and justifying torture said by way of excuse: “Remember it was a time of high danger.”

High danger? Almost 47 years ago, the President of the United States learned that the Soviet Union had suddenly, secretly rushed nuclear intermediate-range missiles onto the island of Cuba, 90 miles from our shores, with the apparent intent of using them for either nuclear obliteration or nuclear blackmail; and we entered a period that historians have subsequently called the most dangerous 13 days in the history of mankind. President Kennedy did not seek or claim extraordinary emergency legal authority. He did not order the imprisonment, much less the torture, of all Communists or Cubans in our country, nor have their telephones tapped without a warrant. Mindful of international law, he took America’s case to the United Nations and the Organization of American States, and he redesigned a proposed blockade of Cuba into quarantine against offensive weapons, carefully balancing deterrence and defense with dialogue and diplomacy, thereby avoiding both nuclear war and a diminution of our security or our adherence to international law.

There’s more here in Jurist.

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Earlier in the week, Jurist reported on Judiciary Committee chair, Patrick Lehey’s renewed call for a bi-partisan “Truth Commission.”

“I know some people say let’s turn the page,” said Lehey. “Frankly, I’d like to read the page before we turn it.”

Yep. A lot of us feel that way. In fact we deem it essential for the health of the country.

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PS: I hope that all of you who are mothers, have mothers, or know mothers had a delight-filled day yesterday. I had a wonderful day with my brilliant and handsome son, (plus his terrific girlfriend and a couple of happily beach-going dogs).

Torture was not discussed at all.