Scalia: Constitution Does Not Prohibit Torture

AP, in an unsigned short article:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate's torture report by saying it is difficult to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened.

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Scalia says nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists.

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Well, fuck, Antonin; good job of answering... what? certainly no question anyone actually asked.

Scalia exemplifies original dyspepsia

Suppose Scalia is correct, and not one word in the Constitution prohibits torture. Does that mean that torture is peachy-keen, and every agent of every three-letter American government agency should run right out and torture the first criminal suspect or terrorist suspect s/he encounters?

In short, it does not matter whether the Constitution of the United States explicitly prohibits torture: torture is wrong anyway, from a moral AND a strategic standpoint.

Is one Texas GOP asshole who occupied the White House for eight years sufficient to overturn two centuries of moral tradition that the US does not engage in torture? And why does an ancient and far from venerable Supreme Court Justice feel compelled to advocate torture publicly?

Scalia is 78 years old and reportedly very religious. Please forgive me if I hope his God calls him home before he incites too many more zealots in the CIA, NSA, FBI and DHS (to name just a few) to grotesque acts in the name of the people of the United States of America.

The CIA Torture Report: Not Much New; A Lot Still Horrifying

Abu Ghraib may
come to seem tame.

The venerable Meteor Blades at Kos summarizes the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program, and it isn't pretty. But if you've read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, or Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars, especially if you've read both of those books (yes, I have), you won't be taken by surprise at the contents of the report: the CIA and most of President Cheney's Bush's inner circle performed, or ordered performed, atrocities that make any sane American gag at what was done in his or her name. Go read Meteor Blades's list for the particulars. Keep your barf bag handy.

(The one thing I found surprising is how much the CIA baldfacedly lied to Congress in its testimony about, e.g., the effectiveness of the torture they applied, measured by the results they obtained. As we already knew, torture doesn't work. What we didn't know, at least in such detail, was how often the CIA resorted to torture despite swearing to Congress that they hadn't.)

You know, to the extent possible, Obama needs to clean house at the CIA. If he won't prosecute the worst of the wrongdoers — I mean the out-and-out criminals like Cheney that he's allowing to skate free — he at least needs to fire any remaining Bush appointees at the top of the CIA hierarchy. Enough is enough!

UNCAT: US Army Field Manual Appendix M Encourages Sleep Deprivation, Sensory Deprivation

Jeff Kaye at FDL's The Dissenter reports:

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) has released their “Concluding observations on the third to fifth periodic reports of United States of America” in regards to US adherence to the prohibitions against torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading forms of treatment of prisoners.

Within the context of the world of diplomacy, the UNCAT findings belie the US insistence that it abides by the Convention Against Torture treaty (CAT), or that it is an adequate model for humane treatment of prisoners.

In particular, the committee took aim at the presence of ill-treatment and torture within the Army Field Manual’s Appendix M, which purports to describe a “restricted interrogation technique” called “Separation.” In a victory for those who oppose government-sanctioned torture and abuse of prisoners, the UNCAT called for the US “to review Appendix M of the Army Field Manual (AFM) in light of its obligations under the Convention.”

More specifically, UNCAT identified the “minimal” sleep regulations in the manual as actually a form of sleep deprivation — “a form of ill-treatment” — and called for adherence to humane norms. In addition, the committee called for the elimination of sensory deprivation in the “field expedient” section of Appendix M, as such sensory deprivation can “create a state of psychosis with the detainee.”

[bolds mine - SB]
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(NOTE: the "Army Field Manual" above apparently refers to Human Intelligence Collector Operations, FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52) (.pdf), one of more than 500 things called "Army Field Manual.")

The nation which, during and immediately after W.W. II, protected the world from egregious torture is now itself the world's primary purveyor of techniques that are effectively torture. I grieve for my country: America is no longer the America I grew up loving and admiring.

John Yoo Appointed To Endowed Chair At Berkeley

Yoo contemplating torture?

John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel and coauthor of the infamous "torture memos" allegedly justifying "enhanced" interrogation... torture... during GeeDubya Bush's Iraq war, has been named to an endowed faculty chair at Cal Berkeley. As DSWright at FDL reminds us, "[i]n America today no good deed goes unpunished nor bad deed unrewarded."

Contrary to rumor, Yoo was not heard to remark in response, "I was only following warders..."