The Hill News

I’ve commented before (4/27/09, 5/8/09, 11/24/09 and 5/16/11) on the Bush post-9/11 policies about torture and the specious legal rationales for it.

Today, a report in Salon disclosed that a former State Department counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Philip Zelikow, wrote an official memo critical of the proposed “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a charming phrase giving cover to what is really torture. According to the Zelikow report, the CIA’s use of “waterboarding, walling, dousing, stress positions and cramped confinement” was unprecedented in our prior wars and should be deemed unconstitutional (cruel and unusual punishment) and illegal. It “shocks the conscience,” a term the U.S. Supreme Court once coined to describe government behavior that should not be protected, no matter what the provocation.

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