I was just wondering, didn't Bush specifically state that America would NEVER countenance the torturing of POWs, and certainly, anyone who did so was an aberration?  If that's so, why is it that it is now revealed that the Administration sought, and got, a legal memorandum of opinion which stated that it would be OK to torture our POWs as a matter of course, and that we didn't NEED to be restricted by the Geneva Convention?

Could this be another example of the lies and hypocrisy of the present administration?

From the text of the article:
"The March memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, was prepared as part of a review of interrogation techniques by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes. The group itself was led by the Air Force general counsel, Mary Walker, and included military and civilian lawyers from all branches of the armed services.

The review stemmed from concerns raised by Pentagon lawyers and interrogators at Guantánamo after Mr. Rumsfeld approved a set of harsher interrogation techniques in December 2002 to use on a Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was believed to be the planned 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 terror plot.

Mr. Rumsfeld suspended the harsher techniques, including serving the detainee cold, prepackaged food instead of hot rations and shaving off his facial hair, on Jan. 12, pending the outcome of the working group's review. Gen. James T. Hill, head of the military's Southern Command, which oversees Guantánamo, told reporters last Friday that the working group "wanted to do what is humane and what is legal and consistent not only with" the Geneva Conventions, but also "what is right for our soldiers."

I realize that your reading skills require the use of your anti-administration filter, but I suggest you read who initiated the review and what the review was about.

You have accused me of misrepresentation, when you are clearly -albeit poorly- attempting to do what you accues me of.

If you actually read contents of the memo, and understood it (check out monday's Wall Street Journal to see what it said - HARDLY a liberal source), you would recognize that this legal opinion went FAR out of its way to provide a legal rationale ALLOWING torture of ALL of the prisoners we are holding in Gitmo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  It is a blatant example of attempting to JUSTIFY this type of behavior, with the most extreme reading of the law possible, and NOT an unbiased opinion on whether or not it was right.

And sorry, I can't link the article in the 6/7/04 WSJ for you, as that's a subscription-only online service.  You'll have to actually try to find it yourself.  It shouldn't be too hard - It was the lead story on the front page of the damn paper on Monday.

it is TRUE that Rumsfeld did eventually order us to stop the type of treatment that this memorandum condones - but he obviously did it in response to the complaints by subbordinates such as General Hill that we were doing BAD, EVIL stuff, and costing ourselves the moral high ground.  There is actually NOTHING in the memorandum itself that would have led to the Administration's curtailing the practice of torture.  NO competent legal counsel could have written this memo unless they were TOLD to find the most aggressive JUSTIFICATION for toture that was possible, rather than a moderate reasoned view of whether torture was allowable or illegal.  

And perhaps, just once, you could try to dispute what I am saying without blatant intellectual dishonesty.  

-- Modified on 6/9/2004 6:22:05 PM

Despite the specific events that may have been the trigger that initiated the review, which I assume WERE as you state, the memo itself in fact is a sweeping, overall justification for use of torture in all of our present conflicts.  No competent legal counsel could have delivered that, unless they were TOLD to find whatever rationale that they could to actually justify torture, NOT to give an unbiased opinion of whether it was appropriate legal treatment.  Legal scholars who reviewed it were unanimous in that regard - according to the Wall Street Journal.

You finally referenced a source and I quoted back your source. Now you're trying to say that wasn't waht you meant.

Give it up.