It’s All Falling Apart Now…

The CIA’s gulags have been exposed by The Washington Post, and naturally, “the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the US government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.”

Predictably, the US government is “more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves. [Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is ‘not concerned about what goes on’ behind the prison walls.” The House of Representatives is already launching a probe in order to find out who blew the whistle.

On what is sure to be an entirely unrelated note, after the Senate votes 90–9 to include an anti-torture provision in a defense spending bill, President Bush threatens a veto. Senator John McCain has promised to include the provision in all major Senate Legislation until it passes: “Speaking from the Senate floor, McCain said, ‘If necessary—and I sincerely hope it is not—I and the co-sponsors of this amendment will seek to add it to every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate until the will of a substantial bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress prevails. Let no one doubt our determination.’ ”

Finally, the White House admits that it won’t rule out torture. The article then goes on to mention that “President George Bush said that Americans ‘do not torture’ ” and that “ ‘[t]he president has said that we are going to do whatever we do in accordance with the law.’ ”