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Bob Herbert on New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's new book about the Jack Bauer fans inside Bush and Cheney's torture world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...
Op-Ed Columnist Madness and Shame
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 22, 2008
snip
When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition , or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.
To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.
"One source of ideas," she wrote, "was the popular television show '24.' On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, "torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis."
I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: "In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer 'gave people lots of ideas' as they sought for interrogation models."
Donald Rumsfeld described the detainees at Guantánamo as "the worst of the worst." A more sober assessment has since been reached by many respected observers. Ms. Mayer mentioned a study conducted by attorneys and law students at the Seton Hall University Law School.
