Borrowing from Pol Pot

A disturbing article from the NY Times, which apparently decided to focus on investigative journalism as opposed to organizing "Tea Parties," indicates that the previous Administration did very little homework before instituting the SERE program that includes the controversial torture techniques including waterboarding. For instance, they did not know that the US prosecuted waterboarding techniques during the Nuremburg trials. They did not realize that waterboarding has been a favorite method of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition and that Pol Pot was a big proponent of waterboarding. And the military psychologist who was accorded a lot of "expert" deference by the Administration had never conducted an actual interrogation. Of course, despite all this, Cheney will tell us that the information derived justified the techniques. Assuming arguendo that valuable information was elicited, no examination was done as to research suggesting that less invasive and torturous methods would produce the same information and that the SEER techniques may lead to a lot of false confessions.

So, ironically In a week in which so much attention is paid to a smile and a handshake made with a "ruthless dictator" whose litany of transgressions has been documented all week, stories of how the prior Administration endorsed torture techniques used by Chinese and Korean Communists and Pol Pot are brushed under the rug. Which is the greater transgression?