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• Friday, December 5, 2008 11:55 AM

  stanczr to GlennG

  Thanks for responding to my email. I cannot answer for the Senator why he would change his mind regarding use of the Army Field manual.

  From GlennG:

  If -- as you claim -- using the Army Field Manual as a standard is a bad idea because it "could leave a loophole for another Bush or Cheney to incorporate techniques which could be called torture," why did Wyden advocate exactly that when Bush and Cheney were in office?

  Glenn, I just read the Senator's assistant's response and took it at face value. SHE claimed that it could be easily altered. It is possible that Sen. Wyden actually learned more details about how the manual is revised and thought that a legislative solution would be better and potentially more permanent. I'm a Canadian, and I tend to be more optimistic about people's possible motivations.

  However, lets be real here. A determined administration or group of people within government will bypass whatever legal hurdles are put in their path to torture if they think they are doing the right thing for their country. Especially if every succesive US administration refuses to investigate and prosecute the [in this case] torturers.

  Until the torturers are brought before a court of law, I would be very surprised if this behaviour ended.

  —stanczr Read stanczr's other letters
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