If you didn’t believe me before about Guantanamo and why it was a remarkably dumb idea, will you believe these guys?
From Politico:
“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at [...]

” I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan. I think that these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq who told me that. I think that the ability of [...]

Everybody’s abuzz about the new Wash Post story today that starts off with the idea that Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) was turned into some type of “terrorist professor” because he was waterboarded.
And away we go…
The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is [...]

But they promise that detainees won’t be abused. More on why I think that’s nonsense later on in the post.
But first, more from NY Times:
The announcement, by President Obama’s Interrogation and Transfer Policy Task Force, seemed intended in part to offset the impact of the release on Monday of a long-withheld report by the C.I.A. [...]

Not that it’s a surprise, but are we at the point now where we start talking seriously about prosecutions? Because it’s apparent that Cheney directed the C.I.A. to break the law by concealing information and if the guy can get away with anything as long as it was done for national security reasons, well, what [...]

A bombshell story broke today about the Obama administration drafting an executive order that could be used to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.
First, here’s the story…
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential [...]

2008 Senator Lindsey Graham seems to disagree with 2009 Lindsey Graham.
This is Mike Fritz and David Murdock from ANP.
Senator Lindsey Graham was a passionate critic of the Bush Justice attorneys during this past summer’s Armed Services Committee hearings on interrogation.
Lately, however, Graham seems to have had second thoughts on the matter. At a recent Judiciary [...]

Afghanistan’s President Hamad Karzai and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari meet with David Gregory to talk about the problems in their countries.

Question: can the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan be solved or will this be Obama’s Iraq?
Discuss…

A couple nights ago, the original Post-Modern Conservative James Poulos, Scott Payne and I spent a few dozen minutes discussing torture – how our thoughts on the issue have evolved, why prosecutions and/or truth commissions aren’t such an easy call, and most importantly why the aspect of the torture program that is most troubling is [...]

Just for future reference, what you’re seeing above is considered a “pour.” You’ll need that information to weave your way through the mine field presented here by Fox News.
Let the apologizing begin…
A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured [...]

First, let me say that I respect Sonny Bunch. A lot. I rarely agree with Sonny, but he is clearly and genuinely interested in engaging those with whom he disagrees.
That said, the posts (and subsequent responsive comment) with which E.D. and Mr. Schwenkler take issue is emblematic of something that has been [...]

[...] imagine if an American operative out of uniform were captured by the Iranians tomorrow. Imagine he were put into a coffin for hours with no light and barely enough air to breathe, imagine if he were then removed and smashed against a plywood wall by a towel tied around his neck thirty times, imagine [...]

This could anger a lot of folks on the left, but I think it’s an incredibly dangerous precedent to prosecute folks for following orders.
More from AP:
WASHINGTON -Attorney General Eric Holder says the government won’t prosecute CIA officials for using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects.
The decision comes as the Obama administration releases [...]

President Obama has decided to relegate the term “enemy combatant” to the waste bin of the Bush era.
The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding [...]

I found this interview through Little Green Footballs, and I have to ask one question: What was Sean Hannity thinking?
Look, I understand that Hannity and his ilk make tons of money off of scaring people. But for this Martin Mawyer guy to suggest assert that this Muslim  group has WMDs… without any shred of evidence or [...]

Really the only way to guarantee a ceasefire is to wait until your enemy runs out of bullets. So it’s baffling what the nutcake negotiators from Israel and Hamas are trying to achieve with these “temporary” ceasefire proposals.
The latest scoop from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper:
“Hamas’ Gaza spokesman Ayman Taha, meanwhile, has said recently that Israel [...]

As we move within 24 hours of inaugurating a new president, most of America’s attention is focused on the future, with a great many Americans hopeful about Barack Obama and his coming presidency. But what about the guy packing up the White House? Does he deserve more than a passing goodbye after eight years?
Bush is [...]

It’s been said before that “the point of torture is torture,” but I don’t think we fully understand the extent to which this is true, nor the extent to which the moral and utilitarian arguments against torture are intertwined. The easiest way to explain what I’m getting at here is through a hypothetical.
In this hypothetical, [...]

“Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”
- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the limits of the phrase “War on Terror”
Here’s more…
The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase “war on terror” had “defined the terrain” when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, “ultimately, the [...]