USA Today: No Torture, No Need To Destroy Videotapes

[Hissyspit]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20071210/cm_usatoday/notorturenoneedtodestroyvideotapes

Opinion
No torture, no need to destroy videotapes
Mon Dec 10, 12:22 AM ET

- snip -

Had the tapes ever gotten out, they might have made the Abu Ghraib prison photos look tame. Imagine the propaganda value Osama bin Laden could reap from video of Arabs struggling in pain as Americans subjected them to waterboarding or other torture. The fact that the prisoner might have been a murderous thug would be lost in the revulsion and condemnation of the United States for barbarism. Nevertheless, that hardly excuses the CIA for destroying the evidence.

The agency appears to have erred four times: First in using the controversial techniques; second in being foolish enough to tape the exercise; third in hiding the tapes from the 9/11 Commission; and finally in destroying the tapes despite explicit warnings not to do so from Congress, the Justice Department and the White House. Spy agencies don't get to write their own laws.

The reason CIA Director Michael Hayden cited for the agency's decision — to protect operatives' identities — seems dubious at best. The CIA has all manner of records that identify officers and doesn't destroy them.

All of this more than justifies the investigations that are getting underway. The Justice Department, Congress and the CIA inspector general have all begun inquiries into whether the CIA is guilty of crimes such as obstruction of justice. But it's also important to handle those probes in a way that avoids adding to the litany of mistakes.

Media attention will inevitably be intense until the facts are established. That's reason for deliberate speed because, like Abu Ghraib, the scandal will be destructive. Appointing a special prosecutor, as Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., suggested Sunday, would achieve the opposite end, unnecessarily bloating the process.

It's also important to remember that the original sin was the torture itself, not the tapes or their destruction.

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[glowing]

1. All the while distracting everyone from the fact that Bush and his

admin. lied about Iran for over a year and hid the NIE.. CIA people's were about to expose the findings, risking even jail time to do so... So, now the CIA is all evil and torturing people (under directive from the White House)... Let's keep focusing on the fact that Bush lied.. and Cheney def. lied and that the congress now def. has their "blue dress".

[fasttense]

2. This USA reporter sure knows how to praise with slight damnation

You've heard of the saying "to damn with slight praise". But in the reverse it is a useful tool to shut up your opposition. This USA opinion, which seems to have no by-line, is praising the CIA for destruction of the tapes with slight condemnation.

In his first line he makes it clear that torture really isn't torture when you dress it up with words like "operatives using harsh techniques to interrogate al-Qaeda detainees". First this USA opinion maker doesn't call it "torture" but "harsh techniques" instead to give it a benign feel. Just because it forces the victim to suffer untold pain and agony, humiliation and fear for his life, doesn't mean we need to call it torture. The writer puts torture in the headline to catch your attention but later refers to it as just another one of those techniques.

Second he declares the victims to be Al Qaeda. How does he know? Were the victims really Al Qaeda or just some hapless fool who got caught up by the large rewards offered to Iraq and Afghan citizens willing to turn in their neighbors. The victims received no trials, no justice, if the evidence was strong enough to label them Al Qaeda, shouldn't they have been put him on trial? Too late now.

Then he conjures up the specter of bin Laden to get the victim of torture out of your mind. "Imagine the propaganda value Osama bin Laden could reap from the video of Arabs struggling in pain as Americans subjected them to water boarding or other torture." (Oops, there's that torture word. But now since he has already described it as just another technique, it's safe to use the real word.)

Don't you think the current crop of torture photographs are enough propaganda for bin Laden? But even so, all that torture alone is really all bin Laden needs for propaganda purposes. Hell every American citizens knows (or can easily find out)its government tortures, so the extra mileage from video tapes really adds little more to the horror.

Anyway the reporter goes on and on like that. Saying things like how useful the info from torture was and "Nevertheless, that hardly excuses the CIA for destroying the evidence." Sort of implying the CIA really needed to torture and destroying the tapes was just a dumb mistake.

Seems the reporter is more concerned that the CIA broke the law but doesn't mention that the CIA destroyed the tapes right after a judge asked for them.

After lightly condemning the gubermint and saying how necessary it is to torture he ends with this little gem: "Had there been no torture, there would have been no need to destroy the tapes."

Ah that torture word again, but he has already described what the CIA did as just another technique, so we know the CIA really didn't torture so all is well.

But the truth is had not a judge asked for the tapes, there would have been no need to destroy the torture tapes.