Making Torture Accountable...Or Not by Philip Giraldi
It was good to learn that Attorney General Eric Holder will be going after CIA torturers...or will he? Holder has appointed a special prosecutor to look into "alleged detainee mistreatment." If that sounds like half a loaf, it should. The prosecutor will look into specific instances where it is suspected that the interrogators exceeded established procedures. As the "established procedures" authorized by the Justice Department permitted a number of measures including both waterboarding and physical torture that did not involve organ failure it would seem that the investigation will only look at bizarre deviations from that norm, including threatening to kill one's family or rape one's mother, beating, shooting, and leaving suspects chained to the floor to die from the cold, as actually occurred. There is absolutely no mandate to go after senior agency officers and White House and Justice Department officials who made the decisions and authorized the techniques. If the investigation conforms to the Abu Ghraib golden standard, a few small fish will be caught and hung out to dry to show that the Obama is Administration is serious while all the big players will dance off to enjoy their pensions and book royalties. - Phil Giraldi, American Conservative Defense Alliance
