Yesterday, the Obama administration released some of the torture memos written by Bush lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel. They are available here. The experience of reading them is difficult to describe. You feel things you aren't used to feeling, and, though they are sickening documents, nausea commingles with a certain fascination. Some part of the effect has to do with the application of cold, antiseptic prose to the subject of (for example) water boarding. The footnotes are not to be ignored. For example, Steven J. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, enumerates, in the memo of May 30, 2005, the "enhanced techniques"--"nudity, water dousing, sleep deprivation and food deprivation"--that "appear to bear some resemblance" to practices which, when employed by Egypt or Indonesia or Iran or Algeria, have been condemned by our State Department as instances of "torture." The possible relevance of this "resemblance" is dismissed in a footnote that reads,
We recognize that as a matter of diplomacy, the United States may for various reasons call another nation to account for practices that may in some respects resemble conduct in which the United States might in some circumstances engage, covertly or otherwise. Diplomatic relations with regard to foreign countries are not reliable evidence of United States executive practice and thus may be of only limited relevance here.
Soon thereafter Mr. Bradbury signs off, "Please let us know if we may be of further assistance."
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