In
memos written in 2003 and declassified last week after a request from Senator Lindsey Graham, it is shown that the Bush administration ignored warnings from their own military lawyers that the newly approved interrogation techniques could endanger US soldiers.
Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism.
In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.
Apparently their only concern was that they were in the clear from prosecution. Bastards.
And these weren't some low-level newbies giving the warnings:
The documents include one written by the deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force, Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, advising the task force that several of the "more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law" as well as military law.
And these people hit the nail on the head...the simple truth that makes the fact that there is even disagreement on this issue unbelievable:
Other senior military lawyers warned in tones of sharp concern that aggressive interrogation techniques would endanger American soldiers taken prisoner and also diminish the country's standing as a leader in "the moral high road" approach to the laws of war. [...]
Rear Adm. Michael F. Lohr, the Navy's chief lawyer, wrote on Feb. 6, 2003, that while detainees at Guantánamo Bay might not qualify for international protections, "Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?"
That's the bottomline right there...our fundamental values mean we don't torture fellow human beings. End of argument.