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Neuroscience proves torturing terrorists won’t keep us safe

Edit Quartz 25 Apr 2016
 Ethics aside, science tells us that torture has no value as an intelligence-gathering tactic ... “When I was reading [the Torture Memos, which was released by Obama in 2009], it occurred to me that each and every one of those procedures were the kinds of things where if you were a malevolent psychologist and you wanted to destroy the fabric of memory, this is what you would do,” he says....

Has Torture Become Normalized in Our Culture? It's Still Unbelievably Inhumane

Edit Alternet 15 Apr 2016
What should be horrifying to Americans has become old hat—or worse, with Trump as torture’s new cheerleader ... Incredibly, even former Office of Legal Counsel Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, the author of the infamous “torture memos” that gave the greenlight for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” has stated that many of the abuses described in the Senate summary exceeded the authorizations set out at that time....

Has Obama Upheld the Law?

Edit The New York Review of Books 10 Apr 2016
If, on the other hand, the lawyers are yes-men and women, the result may be an “executive unbound.”4 John Ashcroft nicknamed Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, of torture memo fame, “Dr ... Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a prosecutor to look into the hundred cases where interrogators went even further than the torture memos permitted, but in the end he dropped them all....

Even DOJ lawyer who approved waterboarding says Trump doesn't get it

Edit WPXI 23 Mar 2016
"For us, waterboarding was the hardest question," John Yoo says. John Yoo is the former Justice Department attorney most famous — or infamous — for drafting the "torture memos" shortly after the 9/11 attacks. His opinion on so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" was and still is highly controversial ... Bush’s “torture memos” says Donald Trump doesn’t understand waterboarding ... Yoo's memos by the Geneva Conventions, and ... ....

UN alarmed by Republican candidates’ torture rhetoric

Edit Press TV 09 Mar 2016
The United Nations (UN) torture investigator has voiced concern about the US Republican presidential candidates’ call for authorizing the use of torture, saying it is a violation of domestic and international law ... “The Bush administration itself had withdrawn the torture memos when it was discovered that these things were happening as a matter of policy,” Mendez said....

UN Torture Envoy Concerned at Waterboarding Rhetoric in US Race

Edit Voa News 09 Mar 2016
torture investigator voiced concern on Wednesday at calls by some Republican candidates in the U.S ... Republican candidate Donald Trump softened his stance on torture last Friday, saying he would not order the U.S ... "The Bush administration itself had withdrawn the torture memos when it was discovered that these things were happening as a matter of policy," Mendez said....

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorses Kasich

Edit The Columbus Dispatch 27 Feb 2016
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The man who gave legal backing to President George W. Bush’s controversial policies on torture and domestic spying operations today endorsed John Kasich for president ... It takes a very special kind of person, and that’s why I’m supporting Gov. John Kasich.” ... When asked afterward about Gonzales and his so-called “torture memo,” Kasich pleaded ignorance about the details....

By Murtaza Hussain and Dan Froomkin February 10, 2016 "

Edit Information Clearing House 10 Feb 2016
“Well, under the definition of torture, no, it’s not ... But Yoo’s definition is absolutely not “the law.” His torture memos, written for Vice President Dick Cheney to provide legal cover for clearly illegal acts, were later rescinded and repudiated by the Bush administration itself, for being barbaric, legally unsupported, and unreasonable....

How Today's Ugly GOP Presidential Race Provides a Teachable Moment

Edit Huffington Post 25 Jan 2016
For years, there's something that we Americans have urgently needed to see. If now isn't a teachable moment -- what with the spectacle of the Republican presidential race before us -- I don't know what would be. We can begin with Trump as a flagrant piece of a much bigger picture ... • In the presidency (Bush-Rove-Cheney) that lied the nation into a war, condoned torture, and (e.g. with the torture memos) subverted the rule of law ... ....

The 500 Year History of Waterboarding—and Why It Doesn't Even Work

Edit Alternet 12 Jan 2016
It was torture when it was used by the Inquisition in 1494 and it was torture when it was used by the CIA in 2003. The following is an excerpt from the new book Does Torture Work? by John Schiemann (Oxford University Press, 2015).. It is torture when an investigation is conducted with torment and force ... According to one of the now infamous “torture memos” from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), in waterboarding....

What Can Michael Gerson Be Thinking?

Edit Huffington Post 12 Jan 2016
In this time of rampant pathology - political, spiritual, intellectual - it is often challenging to try to figure out how other people's minds are working ... This past Friday a question arose in my mind after reading an op/ed piece by the conservative columnist Michael Gerson in the Washington Post ... This, without the least hint of irony ... Debased the institution of the Office of Legal Counsel, and the rule of law, with the torture memo ... ....

Republican Presidential Contenders Compete to See Who Can Kill and Torture the Most

Edit Alternet 11 Jan 2016
In August 2014, when President Obama finally admitted that “we tortured some folks,” he added a warning ... torture, he said, “needs to be understood and accepted ... Or, in the cases of Jay Bybee and John Yoo, the Justice Department authors of some of the more infamous “torture memos,” serving as a federal judge or occupying an endowed chair at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, respectively ... Convention against Torture....

America Revisits the Dark Side

Edit Antiwar 08 Jan 2016
In August 2014, when President Obama finally admitted that “we tortured some folks,” he added a warning ...  Or, in the cases of Jay Bybee and John Yoo, the Justice Department authors of some of the more infamous “torture memos,” serving as a federal judge or occupying an endowed chair at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, respectively ... Convention against Torture....
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