http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/01/is-newsweek-edi.htmlTake one paragraph from the cover-story by Stu Taylor and Evan Thomas now on newsstands:
The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. America brought untold shame on itself with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It's likely that the take-the-gloves-off attitude of Cheney and his allies filtered down through the ranks, until untrained prison guards with sadistic tendencies were making sport with electric shock. But no direct link has been reported.
Let's unpack this. They start by telling the reader that "torture" is complicated. They paint a picture in which what happened was that Dick Cheney's "robust" attitude toward prisoners somehow filtered down and became much more extreme at the bottom. And so you have a sensible patriotic vice-president trying to save America, foiled by improvising sadistic amateurs at the bottom, who even went so far as to use electric shocks.
This narrative, to put it bluntly, is a lie.
There were no electric shocks, to my knowledge, at Abu Ghraib (or even Gitmo, so far as we know). There were just fake electric wires designed to fool a hooded, terrified prisoner that he was in danger of being electrocuted. But Taylor and Thomas introduce this cartoonish torture that never happened to contrast it with Cheney's allegedly more moderate measures. That way, they can bypass the bleeding obvious: there was no distinction between the techniques revealed at Abu Ghraib and what Bush and Cheney specifically authorized.
Most of the abuses at Abu Ghraib - forced nudity, use of dogs, mock executions, stress positions, sleep deprivation, repeated beatings - were all authorized SERE techniques, rendered an indelible part of America's value system by president Bush. They were inflicted on individuals who were subject to no due process, a vast majority of whom were innocent - again in line with the Bush-Cheney policy of seizing individuals without trial and torturing them for information.
A simple question: If these torture techniques brought "untold shame" on the United States, then why exactly is Newsweek effectively defending them? Look at the photo above. This is what Cheney and Rumsfeld authorized in order to soften up prisoners before interrogation. Does Jon Meacham, who continued to defend the Cheney line this morning, think that Lynndie England dreamed up this strange scenario all by herself? You think she figured "fear up" as a SERE technique out by telepathy?
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