"We do not torture" Update

Mr Bush, W, the Chimperor, IDiot in Chief

By whatever moniker, from simply juvenile to outright profane, the current President of the United States of America is an immoral and reprehensible fool.

To whit:

"Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people," Mr. Bush said. "Anything we do to that end, in that effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture."

Why he is unable to acknowledge that this conumdrum was logically solved in great part by the "quaint" old Geneva Convention I will demur from addressing here. Well, it does bear repeating that he certainly and proudly blames his god as his guide.

In defense of their indefensible Leader's delusions as to what constitutes "within the law," and as a result of the humiliating activities at abu Graib and (apparently) Gitmo, the Pentagon has finally released their new policy directive on how to perform interrogations and maintain detainees.

The eight-page directive, which was signed without any public announcement last Thursday by Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, will allow the Army to issue a long-delayed field manual for interrogators that is supposed to incorporate the lessons gleaned from the prisoner-abuse scandals last year.

The Army intends, for example, to ensure that interrogation techniques are approved, up to the highest levels in the Pentagon, that interrogators are properly trained and that personnel in the field are required to report any abuses, Army officials said.

That part about it being singed without any public announcement bothered me upon an initial reading, but I believe in giving people who respond proactively to address criticism the benefit of the doubt. That ain't easy with this Adminiistration though and that is their own doing.

The new Directive 3115.09, "DoD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning," assigns responsibilities for interrogation activities to senior Pentagon civilians and commanders; establishes requirements for reporting violations of the policy; and requires that Central Intelligence Agency interrogators follow Pentagon guidelines when questioning military prisoners.

My emphasized portion speaks to the explicit disagreements put forth by our Great Leader when they prayed before Congress that "we" deserved the right to ignore definitions of inhumane treatment against other human beings. They already have carte blanche to enforce the death penalty via the Executive right to initiate War (ostensibly) and the Patriot Act's allowance for definitional differences between Prisoner's of War and enemy combatants. Their argument to allow the CIA free reign in deciding who qualifies as a human being, and thus deserving of freedom from the threat of torture, is no more surprising from this group than their tacit outing of one of their own in the Plame case.

In related news:

I wonder if the Aussie's needed torture to prosecute this apparently very successful action.