So Much For Which To Repent

I have repeatedly been told by one right-winger that the United States did not torture during the Bush years. Despite abundant testimony and evidence to the contrary. Despite lively discussions on the topic. Despite a memo from the White House's top lawyer at the time, consigliore Alberto Gonzalez, that redefined torture in such a way as to make it disappear. Dan Froomkin, who blogs at The Washington Post, summarizes an article in the Sunday edition of that paper that went a long way toward shredding Bush Administration rationale for the practice of what it called "enhanced interrogation methods and techniques" - which is a horrifying euphemism for torture.

Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."

Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush's Exhibit A in defense of the "enhanced interrogation" procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders.

But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong.

Consider the content of those three little paragraphs. First, the essential facts were first revealed three years ago, but are only now real because they have been reported in the Post. Second, obviously, the Bush Administration lied, in multiple ways. Third, torture was counterproductive. What are some of the specifics behind that euphemism?

Just two weeks ago, in a New York Review of Books article based on a confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mark Danner described the techniques used on Zubaida in harrowing detail.

Here is what Zubaida told the ICRC, via Danner: "'I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.'

"The prisoner was then put in a coffin-like black box, about 4 feet by 3 feet and 6 feet high, 'for what I think was about one and a half to two hours.' He added: The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside.... They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury.'"

It goes on and on. Waterboarding -- and Zubaida is one of three detainees known to have been subjected to that notorious torture technique -- was only a part of it.

One part of Froomkin's piece that needs to burned in to the brains of the American people is the following:

Last April, ABC News reported that starting right after his capture, top Bush aides including Vice President Dick Cheney micromanaged his interrogation from the White House basement. "The high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed," ABC's sources said, "some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic." Bush has acknowledged he was aware of those meetings at the time.

These people not only knew about it. They directed it. From beginning to end.

If this doesn't make you angry, you have no soul.