Disgusting bias of 60 minutes report Leslie Stahl

[Bilge_Rat]

I may regret this, but here goes.

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Not once people claim it is not or claim to have a definition.
Since that comes up in the OP and was the subject of the interview it cannot be irrelevant.

It is irrelevant in the sense that the real question is not the definition, but whether it was legal. I personally believe EITs are torture since the Nazis used the same techniques against our boys in WW2.

No and no.
They were rescinded in 2009 on the basis that they were contrary to federal law banning torture.
The reason there were no prosecutions is because the administration decided not to prosecute people for following faulty government directives.

What was rescinded in 2009 were legal opinions on whether EITs were legal. The opinions were certainly an aggressive interpretation on what is "Torture" in a legal sense, but no one has been able to show that they had no legal basis whatsoever.

The fact that the opinions were formally disavowed in 2009 does not mean that the legal reasoning behind them is no longer valid or that it would not be invoked by a defense attorney should the DOJ attempt a prosecution.

If the DOJ is of the opinion that a crime has been committed, it has no choice but to enforce the law. However, it is impossible to convict someone of a crime, when lawyers themselves cannot even agree if a crime has been committed (i.e. whether EITs are "Torture" in a legal sense).



Back to you, Sir.