“Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director,”
While trying to make a political point, House Minority leader John Boehner dropped the “t word”. When called out on it, a spokesman responded.
“It is clear from the context that Boehner was simply using liberals’ verbiage to describe these interrogation techniques. The United States does not torture.”
Given my workload for the next three weeks, I’m going to abstain from offering any commentary on the discourse surrounding torture. I don’t have time to follow the debate in its entirety and this issue is too important to be discussed in broad strokes or generalities. I will keep linking out to articles though.
In the meantime, Andrew Sullivan has been doing a brilliant job covering the back and forth.
“The very programs that are among the most risky and controversial, and that therefore should get the greatest congressional oversight,” she said, “in fact get the least.”
“The thing that I consider to be my most profound obligation, is keeping the American people safe”.
Obama indicates that he’s open to a Congressional review of the Bush torture memos released last week. Still, he remains steadfast in his belief that if anyone is going to be prosecuted, it’s going to be those who made the legal arguments that permitted such heinous acts rather than the individuals who committed the acts themselves.