When the 18 and 1/2-minutes of Nixon-tape turned up missing, it was the beginning of the end for his presidency. Will the destroyed tapes of CIA torture end Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney’s Gestapo-like torture careers? (Check Washington Post story here )Perhaps not unlike Sgt. Shultz of Hogan’s Heroes, Mr. Bush "knows nothing, remembers nothing" His mouthpiece press spokespinner: "He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday." So far as I’ve read Scott Horton’s take at Harpers is the most focused. But if you want a full scream-by-scream review try Dan Froomkin’s chronology with hot-links from the Washington post. Update: The White House now claims it tried to stop the CIA from destroying evidence; before they claimed destroying the videos was just peachy. I could give you a dozen hot-links but Scott Horton has already collected them with a Sgt. Shultz reference to spare.
It seems this is not the destruction of a couple of cassettes. Hundreds of hours of torture tapes were destroyed. At Daily Kos we're asked what president & CIA knew and when. It takes off from an excellent Kevin Drum post . The NY Times' somewhat ponderous Editorial is here. Considering the NYT broke the story, the edit is a more than a little weak.
Tape of torture destruction could undermine criminal prosecutions: talk left: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/12/8/165619/070
Democrats call for investigations and hearing here. Perhaps, that hearing would be the moment for Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Ashcroft, Prof. Yoo and others to be waterboarded in public. (Read, if you like the this heavily redacted US Attorney’s letter which alerts an appeals panel to false statements the government made about its torture records. False statements? In court?
Need more torture? The CIA
tortured people at a not so secret jail in Jordan Also try these two Kos torture diaries: one by Julie Wolf ; and one by Valtin . How do ordinary people become torturers? Try Conn Hallinan’s thoughtful post from Foreign Policy In Focus The Algebra Of Occupation .
