Following up on the Navy documents acquired this week, Joe Conason reports in Salon (Torture begins at the top) that a May, 2004 FBI memo (download pdf) obtained by the ACLU states that Donald Rumsfeld himself authorized the use of torture in interrogations in Iraq, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan. Counterterrorism and interrogation experts with the FBI voiced their objection to the use of torture as dictated by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.
The grounds for the objections were chiefly more procedural than humanitarian -- information gathered via torture is unreliable. Especially in one case in which Guantanamo interrogators were given a deadlines by the Pentagon for attaining information from detainees.
What do you do when citing the Geneva Accords becomes about as effective an indictment of the Bush Administration as citing a Fat Burger menu. Under the exploitative cover of 9/11 and with the support of a massive right-wing propaganda machine, the administration is behaving like it has carte blanche. Yet at some point, something has to stick. If not the repeated authorization of torture, what then?