McCain slams torture apologists emboldened in wake of bin Laden raid

Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, has long opposed the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the U.S. in the War on Terror. He is now railing against apologists for those techniques, mostly on the right, who have seized on the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of Navy SEALS to assert that it was torture that delivered the intelligence that made the SEALS’ mission to hunt down bin Laden successful.

Silence from Chaput on Marc Thiessen’s Catholic defense of torture

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput made media-catching public pronouncements during the Democratic National Convention here that Catholic pro-choice then-Senator Joseph Biden should not take communion while he was in town. It was a strong anti-abortion political statement. U.S. bishops have…

Report suggests U.S. physicians experimented on detainees

A report by Physicians for Human Rights released on Monday claims that U.S. physicians and psychologists betrayed ethical standards by collecting data on detainees’ reactions to abusive interrogations to as to improve their effectiveness. This would appear to…

McCain admits Bush Administration violated law

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on “Face the Nation” Sunday that — like most Republicans and even some Democrats, including some in the president’s cabinet — he thinks President Obama was right when he said “we ought to…

Anti-torture advocates worry Holder won’t go high enough up the chain

Like many in the intelligence community, Tyler Drumheller, a retired chief of CIA operations in Europe, is waiting to see if his former colleagues will be left holding the bag for the Bush administration.

As early as Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate acts of torture performed by the CIA as part of the Bush administration’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program.

Failing newspapers provide another reason not to read them

What better way to welcome this weekend’s “White House Correspondents Dinner” than with a big lawsuit pitting the Washington Post against the Bush Administration?

Speaking for the paper in an online forum, congressional reporter Paul Kane said the Post won’t call waterboarding people and slamming them into walls torture because it fears a lawsuit for libel — because the paper is in no shape to weather the costs.

The ultimate Bush Administration torture timeline

The New York Times and Sunday morning political talk shows are contorting themselves into linguistically-torturous positions in a feeble attempt to avoid using the word “torture” to describe the immoral and criminal techniques employed at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and CIA black sites against suspected al Qaeda-linked prisoners.

Now, Foreign Policy magazine has produced the euphemism-free “ultimate guide to the Bush Administration’s journey to the dark side.”

Outspoken Archbishop Chaput yet to weigh in on Bush torture memos

Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput is not one to shy away from national politics and he encourages Catholics around the country to engage as well. The connection between Catholic ethics and government policy is fast becoming a specialty in his public speaking. Yet so far there has been nothing issued from his office to guide Catholic thought on the matter of the shocking Bush torture memos and the meaning of their release.

Torture-memo politics force desire for Bush retribution, Obama reflection

The Web is brimming today with comment on Obama’s release of the Bush team’s torture memos, much of it decrying Obama’s accompanying statement, in which he said he believes the torturers should not be held to account.

But the politics that gave rise to the memos suggest a more accurate reading of the politics surrounding their release.

Rights groups call for war prosecutions of Bush Administration officials

Human Rights USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union are expected to make their case why the United States must prosecute former Bush administration officials for war crimes and grave violations of international law before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights this afternoon in Washington.