Clearly, the executive orders mandating the closing of Guantanamo and the banning of torture have yet to affect the widespread derangement among torture apologists that forces them to look for guidance from a television show when assessing problems of national security. The Wall Street Journal today makes this spurious claim about yesterday's executive order:
The unfine print of Mr. Obama's order is that he's allowed room for what might be called a Jack Bauer exception. It creates a committee to study whether the Field Manual techniques are too limiting "when employed by departments or agencies outside the military." The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer "additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies."
Sounds really ominous, doesn't it. Except this out-of-context description ignores the part of the order that says the committee's findings cannot "result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture or otherwise for the purpose, or with the effect, of undermining or circumventing the commitments or obligations of the United States to ensure the humane treatment of individuals in its custody or control." Never mind that the committee itself would likely include anti-torture partisans Leon Panetta and Eric Holder and would have to pass muster with the anti-torture advocates in the Office of Legal Counsel.
There's no exception. The section the article is referring to is how best to adjust the guidelines set out in the Army Field manual for non-military government agencies like the CIA, and the order quite clearly says that this isn't meant to shirk the "obligations of the United States to ensure the humane treatment of individuals in its custody or control."
I've said it before, but quite frankly it's moments like these that really expose the immorality of torture advocates. Lacking both an empirical or moral justification for torture, they look to the legitimacy of the state for reassurance. Now they don't have it. And it's driving them crazy.
-- A. Serwer
