The Bushies' Sexual Torture Fetish

I've said it all along:Only Perverts Torture.

Now Marcy Wheeler identifies the perversion at the heart of the Bushies' hysterical opposition to civilian trials for the criminals they tortured.

I’m not amused that the Wall Street Journal solicited an op-ed attacking the decision to try KSM in civilian court from one of the people–John Yoo–with the biggest conflict on such a decision. It’s yet more proof that Rupert Murdoch is engaged in a partisan pursuit, even with the WSJ.

But I am amused at the way John Yoo dismantles his own argument.

SNIP

Of course, what John Yoo is really worried about are precisely those sources and methods: that is, torture. He’s worried that prosecutors may have to reveal the details of the torture they did to KSM.

SNIP

But there’s one further premise that makes this entire argument wrong. Yoo’s concerns about the exposure of torture-related information–to the extent that they might be valid–are all premised on the notion that the only information we got is so secret that introducing it at trial would violate sources and methods. Aside from the issue of competency hearings (which I think does risk exposing details on torture), torture (and illegal wiretapping–but it wouldn’t be illegal against any of these terrorists) would only be exposed if that’s the only kind of evidence the government has.

And Eric Holder is convinced there’s plenty that comes from clean sources.

John Yoo pretends he knows the universe of information on KSM. His argument suggests that the only evidence came from illegal or highly sensitive means.

What the trial will likely show, instead, is that there was a great deal of information already available before they started torturing KSM. It’ll show that the KSM expert in FBI–who we know was never allowed to get close to the Yoo-sanctioned torture sessions–knew much if not all of the stuff that KSM was blabbing away after being waterboarded the 183rd time.

That’s the real risk for Yoo: not the illegal actions that the trial will expose. But how much evidence there was independent of Yoo’s little torture shop.

At this point, we don't even need video of Yoo and Cheney and Bush giggling and jerking off to the screams of 11-year-olds being ass-raped by American soldiers. We know that's the real reason they ordered torture.