That's chilling.

Glad they were released, upset at Obama's statement: "...at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

He's got a point, and it's obviously politically inconvenient. Congress should take this up.

Continuing the thought... I'm not looking for blame, I'm looking for accountability.

Agreed, Carl, and as Glenn Greenwald points out all the time, refusing to investigate or prosecute misdeeds by the former administration is just setting up a continued cover-my-ass-and-I'll-cover-yours relationship for all future presidents, regardless of party. This is basically the only issue wherein I find the President's intentions to be murky.

When I read the insects thing, my first thought was the scene in "Hook" where they're throwing scorpions in with a guy locked in a chest.

Reading the memo, they're actually talking about putting a single caterpillar in with the guy and just not telling him whether or not it's a 'stinging insect.' I'm still not wild about it, but it's not as heinous as it first came across.

The weird part though, is where they make the argument that depriving the guy of sleep for up to 11 days does not "substantially interfere with his cognitive abilities" or "disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality," either of which would make the procedure torture. Hmmmmm.......

And of course the waterboarding stuff pretty much speaks for itself at this point.

@B'way C, Kyle: It's such a fine line he's walking, isn't it? I agree with not prosecuting the actual CIA officials--after all, if you send soldiers into war, tell them to kill, then suddenly you fin dout the war was illegal, I don't think it would be right to prosecute them for murder. Going along with legal guidelines (deeply flawed though they may be) is different than "just following orders." On the other hand, someone (probably many someones) needs to be held accountable.

Part of me wonders if Obama is holding off because he's worried that the country can't handle the reality of this whole situation. In other words, prosecution or no, these people are not going to pay for their crimes in any way. And it always sucks when you get confirmation that your justice system isn't just at all.

Hooray for the ACLU. Can't really give Obama a Hooray based on his desire to sweep all this under the rug (a big bulge it makes too). When I read "the waterboard" it sounds so innocuous, almost like a surfboard, skateboard. I have to give the torturers that much, that they were successful, at least for a while, in hiding the true heinous nature of the use to which "the waterboard" was intended.

@rogect8,
yeah? my first thought was of that assclown Joe Rogan (the guy that ruined the manshow) with that sickening reality show he used to do. Remember? the one with the grilled penis buffet?

I've got to say though- despite the tepidness of the Obama- I'm stoked! This is a critical moment. Thank you Jesus!

Now let's put there asses behind bars!!

Sp. (their) asses out to be b'hind bars!

Damnned intertubes.

damnned high-octane Beverage!!

you know... Their asses ought to be thrown strait in the pen.

>>Reading the memo, they're actually talking about putting a single caterpillar in with the guy and just not telling him whether or not it's a 'stinging insect.' I'm still not wild about it, but it's not as heinous as it first came across.

Well, it worked on John Cleese in Fierce Creatures, although that was a tarantula. Also, comedy and fiction, also.

Yeah...it is pretty strange how all of this sounds like a bad movie (or a worse reality show). And by "bad movie," I mean Fierce Creatures. Because we all know that Hook rules.

Seriously though...."a flexible false wall," insects in confinement boxes, 'we're gonna bring in a new interrogation specialist he hasn't seen before'....where else would these guys be getting their ideas?

Reading the memo, they're actually talking about putting a single caterpillar in with the guy and just not telling him whether or not it's a 'stinging insect.' I'm still not wild about it, but it's not as heinous as it first came across.

Sure, but the detainee doesn't know it's a harmless bug, we don't know what they told him it was.

We're halfway there. Someone with guts needs to take the ball. Patrick Leahy? Dennis Kucinich? Russ Feingold? Bernie Sanders? I don't know.

How bizarre that while they were doing this, we were still being taught at SERE that these things were (a) torture (2) illegal and most of all ineffective for gaining reliable intelligence.

The people who actually committed the acts ARE responsible. Doing what you know is wrong because you were ordered to do it is a BS excuse.

John Yoo is an insect - can we put him in a confinement box? Forever?

I like more specificity. John Yoo is a cockroach that should be shipped to Spain for trial post haste.

>>>Sure, but the detainee doesn't know it's a harmless bug, we don't know what they told him it was.

True. Actally, reading that section of the first memo really gives one a sense of how ridiculous these people are. The position of the Bush administration is as follows: "It IS torture if you lock the guy up in a box, tell him you're going to drop in a stinging insect, and then drop in a non-stinging insect. But it's NOT torture if you lock the guy up in a box, tell him you're going to drop in an insect without specifying whether it's stinging or non-stinging, and then drop in a non-stinging insect." The mental gymnastics that these people went through are truly astounding.

He has no valid point. We need catharsis and accountability, and to be assured that future leaders won't do the same thing.

Shackles (and caterpillars) for the lot of them!