The following excerpt is from the OPR Final Report (Huge PDF) on the OLC's legal justification for CIA torture (p. 64):
Yoo was asked how to explain how the torture statute would interfere with the President's war making abilities, and gave the following answers:
Q: I guess the question I'm raising is, does this particular law really affect the President's war making abilities...
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: What is your authority for that?
A: Because this is an option that the President might use in war.
Q: What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power the President could legally --
A: Yeah. Although, let me say this. So, certainly that would fall within the Commander-in-Chief's power over tactical relations.
Q: To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?
A: Sure.
Here's another one:
On one of the interrogation videotapes, CIA OIG investigators noted that a [REDACTED] interrogator verbally threatened Abu Zubaydah by stating, "If one child dies in America, and I find out you knew something about it, I will personally cut your mother's thoat." [REDACTED] commented, in its review of CIA OIG Report, that the threat was permissible because of its conditional nature.
How's that for moral clarity.
Oy.
EDIT: Please feel free to point out any more interesting excerpts from the recently released OPR documents.
EDIT 2: Digg this diary here
http://digg.com/...