The brutal treatment of prisoners is again in the public spotlight with the declassification of the 2003 torture memo.
According to British attorney Philippe Sands’s article in Vanity Fair (“The Green Light”), John Yoo and other high-ranking administration attorneys helped craft interrogation methods used at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and secret CIA prisons. Pentagon attorney Diane Beaver, stated that the interrogation techniques used were modeled on the TV program ‘24’.
It is extremely disturbing that John Yoo, a passionate advocate of torture, should be allowed to teach at students UC Berkeley. He should be fired, disbarred and tried on war crimes.
Many prisoners may well be innocent of any crimes such as German born who was kidnapped and brutally tortured (see March 31 ‘60’ Minutes). Bent on retribution, and ignoring the FBI and German intelligence who found Kurnaz innocent, this Darth Vadar administration tortured him and robbed him of 5 years of his life
The administration, recognizing the potential war crimes charges it could face, hastily adopted legislation in the Military Commissions Act granting immunity to those engaged in torture. Also, buried deep inside a bill currently before Congress, is a startling provision which would grant Bush and other members of his administration retroactive immunity from war crimes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHQ7Prwh7Gc).
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