We have known for some time the general contents of the 81-page memo offering a legal rationale for extreme interrogation techniques that John Yoo of the Justice Department wrote and sent to the Pentagon’s top lawyer on March 13, 2003. We’ve known that it proclaimed the President of the United States to be almost entirely above the law when it comes to protecting the nation’s security in a time of war. And we’ve known that the memo’s impact on the interrogation methods used by American soldiers, intelligences officers and contractors survived well past the nine months it took before the Justice Department quietly disowned it.
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The ends justify the means. Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley, defends the memo, saying it was standard-issue “boilerplate” aimed at protecting Presidential power. What a relief. (Here are links to the full memo: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4). NOTE: In a new piece in Vanity Fair, Phillippe Sands lays the blame for abuses on the lawyers, and their bosses.
Mais papo sobre tortura nos porões do Bush. Tudo documentado, explicado e colocado em contexto. E ainda assim, tudo errado, muito errado. Vinte anos, marquem minhas palavras, vai demorar no mínimo vinte anos para desfazer o estrago.
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Enquanto isso, o Bill Clinton olha para o prospecto das chances da Hillary. E surta. Até porque, a coisa na filadélfia pode sair do planejado. Como bem demonstra o gráfico da Time:
