Legal Commentary

News from America guaranteed to prompt terrorist belly laughs

By Beldar

This makes me laugh too, sorta ? but it simultaneously makes me want to weep, for my profession and my country, and for what the former has done to hamstring the latter's desperate fight against the terrorists who would destroy us if they could (first and third bracketed portions mine, others by TIME):

The CIA desire to use insects during interrogations has not previously been disclosed, according to two civil liberties experts contacted by TIME. The Bybee memorandum, which was written on August 1, 2002[, by then-Assistant Attorney General, now U.S. Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee], described the CIA's plans for using insects this way:

"You [the CIA] would like to place [top Al Qaeda official Abu] Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us [the Department of Justice] that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him. You would, however, place a harmless insect in the box. You have orally informed us that you would in fact place a harmless insect such as a caterpillar in the box with him."

An additional sentence at the end of this paragraph is redacted in the copy made public Thursday. Later in the same memo, Bybee concludes that "an individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box." Bybee adds, however, that the interrogators should not tell Zubaydah that the insect sting "would produce death or severe pain."

One presumes that threatening to dip Zubaydah's pony-tail into an inkwell would likewise have been "torture" unless he were first warned that the "ink" was really easily washed out with ordinary shampoo.

Snark aside: Faced with the choice of putting American lives at mortal risk or putting an al Qaeda terrorist into a juvenile hissy fit, we, as a nation acting through our elected leaders' lawyers, chose the former.

And the Obama administration still calls that "torture," and apologizes for it anyway:

"Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing,? said [Director of National Intelligence Dennic C.] Blair in a written statement....

I suspect the al Qaeda terrorists are laughing even harder about the part about us all being "safe" now that it's April 2009 and The One has moved into the White House. But that doesn't make me want to laugh at all.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).