Bill Moyers' tour de force, once again. Tonight he aired, for most of the journal, segments from the documentary film Torturing Democracy.
The documentary TORTURING DEMOCRACY tells the story of how the United States government circumvented tradition and law to adopt torture as official policy. The film, produced by award-winning filmmaker Sherry Jones, draws on interviews, archival footage, and recently declassified documents to piece together the development and dissemination of torture tactics from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib -- and the document trail leads right to the top of the chain of command.
Several detainees are interviewed, along with Gen. Thomas Romig, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Col. Steven Kleinman, Richard Armitage, Brent Mickum (pro bono attorney), Alberto Mora (USN top civilian lawyer), and Col. Stuart Couch (senior prosecutor with Office of Military Commissions).
Must see TV!
In concluding comments, Bill Moyers says
President Obama has announced he will close Guantánamo by next January, with the particulars to come later in the summer. That was enough to set off hysteria among Democrats and Republicans alike who don't want the remaining 240 detainees on American soil - even in a super maximum-security prison, the kind already holding hundreds of terrorist suspects. The President also triggered criticism from constitutional and civil liberties lawyers when he suggested that some detainees may be held indefinitely, without due process.
Also, Time is reporting on the astounding effectiveness of sugar-free cookies in extracting info from OBL's chief bodyguard (forgive me if this has been diaried previously).