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Using "Legal" Opinions to Engage in Bald-Faced Hypocrisy About Torture

By Jack M. Balkin

"We do not torture," declared President Bush in 2005.

A Justice Department memo begins with this declaration: ?Torture is abhorrent both to American laws and values and to international norms.?

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino insisted about prisoners that ?We don?t torture them.?

OLC spokesman Brian Reohrkasse said he could not comment on classified memos but insisted that they are consistent with the administration?s ?strong opposition to torture.?

CIA Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell repeated that ?the United States does not engage in torture. The president has been very clear about that.?

More such statements have been made in the past several years by Bush Administration officials.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that prisoners have been subjected to ?slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions;?waterboarding.? (NYT Oct. 4, 2007; above quotes also from NYT).

How could we repeatedly insist that ?WE DON?T TOTURE? while engaging in forms of torture all along?

Easy: We had secret Justice Department memos which, relying upon serious and detailed legal analysis, concluded that ?NOTHING WE DO IS TORTURE.?

Full post as published by Balkinization on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).