Notes on the upcoming Torture probes

For those following Eric Holder's decision to investigate the CIA operatives who went beyond the directives of the Bush Justice Department's torture memos, some interesting links:

The Washington Times with a profile of John Durham, the special prosecutor appointed by Holder.

Scott Horton of Harpers on why the Obama administration, after releasing loads of info on what the CIA did, still hasn't released the report from the Office of Professional Responsibility, which focuses on the misconduct of the Justice Department lawyers who provided the arguments that authorized torture.

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate on why an investigation that limits its attention to those who overstepped the Bush team's directives would be a disgrace, betraying those in the Agency who were principled enough to resist illegal orders, and legitimizing the means by which the law was summarily cast aside.

A second reading of the CIA IG report by the Times, laying out the evidence that the interrogation program was controlled down to the last detail not by rogue agents out in the field, but by bureaucrats at the Agency and Justice in Washington.

And finally, just for fun, an interview between Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Politico, where he characterizes the investigations as "bullshit", "disgraceful", and "declaring war on the CIA". For those of you who don't know King, one of his more recent legislative contributions was an amendment to the federal hate crimes bill clarifying the definition of "homosexuals" to explicitly exclude "pedophilia". Being roughly equivalent to clarifying the definition of "vegetables" to explicitly exclude "rat poison", the amendment was defeated, along party lines, as it happens. Naturally, James Dobson characterized this chain of events as "Democrats support the rights of pedophiles."

But I digress...King, like many others, remains content to ignore the facts that a) the "enhanced interrogation techniques" produced no unique intelligence in the war on terror, and in fact resulted in more wild goose chases than actual leads, b) federal law and treaty obligations specifically prohibit the exact techniques authorized by the Bush White House, and they have been prosecuted as crimes by the US government in both peacetime and wartime, c) actions undertaken by the US and the legal acrobatics used to justify them provide a blueprint for our enemies to treat our soldiers in kind in current and future conflicts, and d) Holder, perversely, is still only investigating those who didn't follow the orders of their bosses in Washington. My favorite quote from the Congressman:

"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?"

Indeed - why is it OK?