This is one of those stories that you have to hope isn’t true, while more or less assuming that it is. Via Firedoglake from the London Daily Telegraph, writing about evidence that the British government has attempted to suppress:
A British official, who is regularly briefed on intelligence operations, said: “The concern was that the document revealed that intelligence from the British agencies was used by the Americans and that there were British questions asked while Binyam Mohamed was being tortured.
“Miliband is being pushed hard by the intelligence agencies to protect the identity of those involved.”
The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, “is very far down the list of things they did,”the official said.
The blogger over at Firedoglake makes the point that it would be hard for anyone to believe that an act like that was legal, even if it was blessed by John Yoo. He also points out that Dick Cheney has said that each torture technique was individually approved at the White House. It makes you sick just to imagine Dick and George discussing whether slicing someone’s genitals was torture. It makes you even sicker to think that they may have decided that it wasn’t.
Meanwhile, Pat Leahy has called for a Truth Commission. War crimes trials would be better, but the Truth Commission approach is not unprecedented. We just need to avoid the type of bi-partisan coverup we got from the 9/11 Commission.
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