Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Torture Archive
July 02, 2008
Yes, Waterboarding is Torture
Christopher Hitchens, after voluntarily undergoing water-boarding, concludes, "if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."
June 18, 2008
Is it a crime to want guilty officials tried and punished?
Volokh Conspirator Orin Kerr thinks that the plan to hold a law-school conference about possible war crimes trials for Bush and his cronies might be of interest to the Secret Service. I can't imagine why.
June 16, 2008
Ambition and moral degeneration
John McCain in 1974 knew that sleep deprivation and stress positions are forms of torture. John McCain in 2008 voted to keep them legal.
April 18, 2008
Yoo, tenure, and the Office of Professional Responsibility
If OPR finds that Yoo committed professional misconduct, that would be a good reason for Boalt to open a tenure inquiry.
April 14, 2008
More Yoo-hoo
A lawyer's words are sometimes deeds: sometimes, indeed, crimes. But bad lawyering, even criminally bad lawyering, isn't a good basis for stripping a professor of tenure.
Firing John Yoo: a comment
Firing John Yoo - the vocational distinction
April 13, 2008
Should John Yoo lose his job?
No: what he did may well have been a crime, but it wasn't academic misconduct. No conviction, no case for revoking tenure. But no principle of academic freedom guarantees John Yoo the right to have any of his colleagues eat lunch with him, or even say "hello."
March 30, 2008
Concerning torture, ticking bombs, and "lawfare"
Torture is never restricted to "worthwhile" targets.
March 08, 2008
Opportunity knocks
Looking forward to Obama's anti-torture speech.
March 07, 2008
Question for Hillary Clinton
Does Hillary Clinton think that someone who believes that the CIA should employ torture is fit to be Commander-in-Chief?
February 14, 2008
Textual criticism
The NYT goes into the tank for John McCain on the torture bill. He "steadfastly opposes the use of torture," even as he votes against a bill forbidding torture.
January 20, 2008
Moral clarity Dep't
Which Presidential candidate "does not condone torture" but refuses to say that, e.g., waterboarding, is torture?
January 04, 2008
Obama against police torture
Obama pushed through the Illinois legislature a bill requiring that all police interrogations of suspects be video-taped. That took both courage and skill.
December 13, 2007
License to torture
The Bushies make it explicit: in order to be able to torture suspected terrorists with partial-drowning interrogation (AKA waterboarding), we're prepared to expose captured US servicepeople to the same treatment.
Partisan differences
Democrats are unanimously anti-waterboarding; Republicans are unanimously pro-waterboarding.
December 11, 2007
Uh-oh!
CIA interrogator says torture was approved personally by the Deputy Director for Operations.
December 09, 2007
Torture as a partisan issue
Good news: the Democrats still own the anti-torture issue. Bad news: it's probably not a winner on Election Day.
December 07, 2007
Torture and capital punishment
1. Some people enjoy thinking about inflicting pain, and don't feel guilty about that enjoyment as long as they can imagine that the pain is being inflicted on bad people for good reasons.
2. Supporting torture demonstrates that a candidate will do ANYTHING to fight terrorism.
3. Supporting torture demonstrates manliness.
The consequentialist arguments are afterthoughts. Just like the death penalty.
November 13, 2007
We get letters (update)
Dan Simon replies to my arguments about universal jurisdiction and torture.
November 05, 2007
Precisely!
McCain makes Giuliani's laxity about torture a question of competence.
November 02, 2007
Push comes to shove
Should Obama lead a filibuster against Mukasey?
October 31, 2007
Danger - rabid surrender monkeys
Rumsfeld was warned of the legal risks.
October 30, 2007
Hurrah!
Waterboarding is "repugnant," says Mukasey, but I can't tell you whether it's illegal until after I'm confirmed.
Universal jurisdiction in U.S. law
Our domestic law claims jurisdiction over torture committed anywhere in the world.
Walking the plank
universal jurisdiction on crimes of torture.
October 29, 2007
We get letters
Are war criminals exempt from trial except by their own governments?
October 27, 2007
Post equitem sedet atra cura
Torture charges filed against Rumsfeld in Paris: a good strategy
October 25, 2007
Sadist-in-Chief
Rudy Giuliani is enough to make you want to believe in Hell.
October 23, 2007
Is waterboarding torture?
The Democrats on Senate Judiciary give the nominee for Attorney General a little lesson in history and law.
October 18, 2007
Drawing the line
If Mukasey says he doesn't know whether waterboarding is torture, put the nomination on the shelf and tell him to go watch a session or two and come back when he's made up his mind.
October 12, 2007
An expert opinion
The retired Air Force officer who was in charge of interrogating North Vietnamese POWs thinks Bush's torturers are not merely goons, but clowns.
October 10, 2007
Suggestion
How HRC can resolve the ambiguity about torture in today's Washington Post story.
HRC on torture: the "we don't know" evasion
If she pretends she doesn't know whether the Bush Administration is torturing people, she is not actually against torture.
October 09, 2007
"A bill for the relief of Khaled al-Masri"
If the courts won't do justice, Congress can. And should.
October 05, 2007
"I never laid hands on anyone; I never compromised my humanity."
The Army didn't need to torture Nazi POWs in WWII. Aren't you glad we're ruled today by the manly men instead?
October 03, 2007
"Ashamed"
James Comey told his colleagues at DOJ that they would be ashamed of themselves when the world found out about their facilitation of not-torture. Perhaps he overestimated them.
August 25, 2007
Adults only
Stupid blog ratings.
August 18, 2007
Padilla loves Big Brother
Padilla is a victim of Stalinist brainwashing.
July 27, 2007
Bush to the Hague?
Reagan's Commandant of the Marine Corps and one of his White House lawyers say that George W. Bush is a war criminal.
July 12, 2007
Sen. Vitter and the Eighth Amendment
Some obscenely partisan Democrats have proposed a campaign to send dull steak knives to Wendy Vitter, so she can carry out her "Lorena Bobbitt" threat. Have we learned nothing from Abu Ghraib? Yes, Sen. Vitter has disgraced his office, and yes, he voted with the rest of the Republicans to allow torture, but cutting off his pecker with a dull...
June 27, 2007
Patriotism and folly
It's possible to be wrong without being disloyal.
June 17, 2007
Royal torture
An Elizabethan torture warrant.
June 16, 2007
Fun and games with codes
The price of signals security may include the rise of torture.
May 30, 2007
Interrogation: torture vs. competence
How come the wingnuts who are so hot for "enhanced interrogation" don't seem to give a rat's behind about the deficiencies (linguistic and other) in the interrogator corps: deficiencies which the Bush Administration has done nothing to remedy? Could it possibly be that their interest is in cruelty rather than in acquiring information? Just asking.
May 21, 2007
Lincoln on the apologists for "torture-lite"
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
May 14, 2007
Petraeus on torture
He's against it. Huh? Is he some sorta LIBRUL?
May 06, 2007
Battlefield ethics in Iraq
Good news, and bad, from a survey of U.S. troops in Iraq. Less than half think their officers and NCOs are physically courageous.
April 21, 2007
Learning the lesson of Abu Ghraib
No pictures of the flogged Iraqi. The Pentagon can't control the problem, but it can control the press. And all the people who said the Abu Ghraib pictures were needlessly inflammatory will simply ignore the story, which, since it doesn't have pictures, won't have much traction.
Why do you suppose ...
... the Pentagon suddenly told soldiers not to testify before a closed-door Congressional hearing about training Iraqi security forces? If you guessed "torture," you're right. But don't be too proud of yourself. "Torture" is the answer to a lot of questions these days. I don't suppose even the "Gee, I'm not sure waterboarding is really torture" crowd will be able...
April 10, 2007
Don't worry ...
... no American would be subjected to interrogation under sleep deprivation at Camp Cropper for blowing the whistle on politically-connected wrongdoers. Would he?
April 08, 2007
We threatened his mother with RAPE?!
So it would appear. But that isn't "torture," says the Army. Oh, no.
April 07, 2007
War crimes and crimes against humanity
Col. Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff, says he's heard about the maltreatment of prisoners directly from those who carried it out: "CIA, military, and contractor."
March 24, 2007
Bonus
Once Gonzales goes, Gates and Rice will restart their push to close Guantanamo.
March 12, 2007
Andy Sabl on torture, teaching, and civil courage
Does "paralysis by analysis" have a moral analogue?
March 04, 2007
Stalinism vs. the rule of law
When the prosecutor gets to threaten criminal charges against the defense lawyer for "using contemptuous language" toward the high officials who ordered the maltreatment of his client in captivity, and the crime being charged didn't exist when the defendant was apprehended, it's hard to call what's happening a "fair trial," isn't it?
February 28, 2007
Such another victory ...
The judge says Jose Padilla is competent to stand trial. Good. Now we get to hear in open court about the "special care" he received, which has left him incapable of believing that his lawyers are not just another set of interrogators working for his captors.
February 03, 2007
Form and substance
"Cully" Stimson just lost his job. John Yoo is still teaching at Berkeley. Abstract principles are easier to agree on than concrete applications. Too bad, but that's the way it is.
January 20, 2007
Attorney General: no right to habeas corpus
In testimony before the Senate, the Attorney General in effect claimed tyrannical powers for the President. Where's the outrage?
January 13, 2007
Due process?
We don't need no stinkin' due process!
1. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for detainee affairs suggested that big corporations threaten to withdraw their business from law firms that represent detainees pro bono.
2. An official Pentagon spokesman disavowed the suggestion.
3. Why hasn't Stimson been fired?
4. Unlike Mike O'Hare, I don't think there's a violation of legal ethics here.
5. But could there be a criminal violation of the civil rights laws?
January 07, 2007
Politics of the absurd?
The State Department refuses to give a U.N. team access to prisoners at Guantanamo, then dismisses their critical report as "without merit" because it isn't based on first-hand evidence.
January 04, 2007
Dietary restrictions
The difference between a real conservative and a Bushite lapdog is limits. Jonathan Adler, for example, has some.
December 17, 2006
Of course they're all terrorists ...
Donald Vance, an American citizen and Navy veteran, got caught up in a raid on a contractor that was brought about by his own actions as a whistleblower. The account of his subsequent maltreatment at Camp Cropper is enough to turn your stomach.