David Cole, writing in The New York Review (behind a subscription wall, alas), points out that the definition of torture offered up by Yoo & Bybee, Ltd., is "literally meaningless." "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death"--what? You can be crucified or sit in the car in the closed garage with the motor running. Both cause death but one would expect law school graduates to understand that one causes more physical pain than the other. Yet by the logic of these memos death always means a certain number on the physical pain scale. The examples of organ failure and impairment of bodily function fail for the same reason.
Put aside morality and law. On the face of it, their advice is worthless.
Except that the useless standard, and overall shoddiness of legal reasoning, had the effect of permitting their clients to torture. If that was the intent, it worked.
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