Trained

The Italian Supreme Court, which as far as this blog is concerned rules only on matters relating to sex, has ruled that it is okay to lie to the police about your adulterous affairs.

In his weekly radio address, Bush justified vetoing the intelligence authorization bill, which would have banned waterboarding and other forms of torture, confining the CIA to those forms of violent interrogation set out in the Army Field Manual. He calls the things the CIA does to people’s bodies “specialized interrogation procedures” (as opposed to general ones), which he assures us are “safe and lawful techniques.” The English language is being tortured to breaking point here. Safe torture. Lawful torture (what law? he does not say). Even “techniques” is pretty creepy when you think about it.

He says the Army Field Manual methods are not sufficient because they are “designed for use by soldiers questioning lawful combatants captured on the battlefield. They were not intended for intelligence professionals trained to question hardened terrorists.” Really, it’s all about the training. On both sides: “Shortly after 9/11, we learned that key al Qaida operatives had been trained to resist the methods outlined in the manual.” So, it’s okay for trained intelligence professionals to torture trained professional terrorists, as long as everyone’s had the right training.