The Worst of the Worst

Andrew Sullivan provides us with a summary argument explaining why the practice of torture is so dangerous - a Federal Judge, let me say that again, a FEDERAL JUDGE , has found that the United States tortured a man it knew to be innocent solely to extract a confession that would allow our government maintain its claim that all of our Guantanamo detainees were terrorists. A summary report on the Court's decision in the habeus petition of Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabinah, written by journalist Andy Worthington, can be accessed here.

I highly encourage you to read each of these documents in their entirety - but if this is too much, at least read the introduction to the judge's decision. The entire opinion is truly an astonishing summary of government misconduct.

Thank God for the writ of habeus corpus and an independent judiciary. Were it not for a 5-4 ruling by our Supreme Court, the facts of this case would never have seen the light of day.

And lest any of you think that responsibility for this atrocity rests solely on the Bush Administration - although most of it does - the Obama administration is cleary implicated. It sought to prosecute Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabinah, based on the exact same torture produced evidence. Officials in the Obama Administration were apparently prepared to keep an innocent man in prison, indefinitely, based on confessions that the previous administration tortured out of him, which these same officials knew to be false, simply to protect the government's reputation.

This is a national disgrace.

Joe H.