Pouring Water on a Drowning Man.

“The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.” Perusing last week’s sordid torture memos, eagle-eyed blogger Marcy Wheeler discovered an unsettling statistic: two suspects — Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — were waterboarded by the CIA 266 times. Zubaydah “revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been ‘unnecessary’ in his case.“

Meanwhile, as right-wing stooges like former CIA director Michael Hayden and Mike Allen’s anonymous friend excoriate the president for breaking tradition and revealing the illegalities of the Dubya era, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel ventured onto the Sunday shows to tamp down talk of any prosecutions, even for the higher-ups. “[P]eople in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn’t be prosecuted…those who devised policy, he [Obama] believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either, and that’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter.“

Wrong answer, Rahm. And, unless President Obama were to grant full pardons to the architects of Dubya-era torture, it’s not even his call whether or not they should be prosecuted. In fact, choosing not to prosecute them would constitute a violation of international law.

Update: The White House doesn’t necessarily agree with Rahm. “[A]dministration officials said Monday that Mr. Emanuel had meant the officials who ordered the policies carried out, not the lawyers who provided the legal rationale. Three Bush administration lawyers who signed memos, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury, are the subjects of a coming report by the Justice Department’s ethics office that officials say is sharply critical of their work. The ethics office has the power to recommend disbarment or other professional penalties or, less likely, to refer cases for criminal prosecution.“

Update 2: “With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.” President Obama opens the door further for prosecution.

Inside our Room 101.

“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.”

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O’Brien was standing, Winston could not see what the thing was.

“The worst thing in the world,” said O’Brien, “varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by implement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal…In your case,” said O’Brien, “the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.”

And, sometimes, here in our own Room 101, it’s insects. As breaking everywhere this afternoon, the President authorizes the release of four long-awaited CIA memos that detail the rationalizing and application of Bush-era torture policies. [No. 1 | No. 2, No. 3a/3b | 4a/4b.] And, as Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald notes, they seem to suggest that even the parties-that-be knew what they were doing constituted torture. (“Each year, in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the United States condemns coercive interrogation techniques and other practices employed by other countries. Certain of the techniques the United States has condemned appear to bear resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques…The State Department’s inclusion of nudity, water dousing, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation among the conduct it condemns is significant and provides some indication of an executive foreign relations tradition condemning the use of these techniques.“) But, they approved these already-condemned practices as legal anyway, with the caveat that they “cannot predict with confidence whether a court would agree with this conclusion.” Yeah, you think?

Well, let’s hope the courts get a chance to decide either way. While releasing these documents today, Pres. Obama and Attorney General Holder also made clear that the CIA interrogators involved will not be prosecuted for these acts. “‘It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,’ he said in a statement.” Um, I’m of the opinion that it would be unfair to get strung up in a, cough, “stress position” by a bunch of Cheney-authorized CIA yahoos and then see no legal recourse for it. (And, hey, “just following orders” — what a novel legal defense. Who were the ad wizards that came up with that one?)

On the other hand, as the WP points out: “Today’s carefully worded statement left open the possibility, however, that agents and higher-level officials who may have ventured beyond the strategies approved by Bush lawyers could face legal jeopardy for their actions.” That still closes too many legal doors, imho. The strategies approved by Bush lawyers are horrible — and illegal — enough. But, at least we can still hold out the minute possibility that the real, top-level architects of Dubya-era torture policy will face some sort of prosecution for their crimes, above and beyond their inevitable condemnation in the history books. (President Obama may argue that “[t]his is a time for reflection, not retribution,” but, the law is the law. And, as he should know, pardoning Nixon didn’t do Gerald Ford any favors.)

Either way, let’s be clear: These memos prove beyond a shadow of a doubt — as if there were any doubt left — that it was the stated and directed policy of the Dubya-era CIA to engage in acts they knew to be torture. That is unacceptable, completely antithetical to our ideals, and exceedingly worthy of a criminal investigation. If, in the name of national unity or CIA morale or whatever, the president wants to give a pass to the flunkies who actually held the victims down as they flailed, choked, or writhed in agony…well, that just means somebody else higher-up has to pay. Fine. But, if the rule of law means anything anymore, and I believe it does, the people responsible must be held to account.

No Better Investment.

“In a remarkable illustration of the power of lobbying in Washington, a study released last week found that a single tax break in 2004 earned companies $220 for every dollar they spent on the issue — a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investment.” A new study by three University of Kansas profs tries to quantify exactly the amount of lucre generated by the lobbyists and influence-peddlers aswarm in Washington for their employers. And the answer? A whole lot. “The paper…examined the impact of a one-time tax break approved by Congress in 2004 that allowed multinational corporations to ‘repatriate’ profits earned overseas, effectively reducing their tax rate on the money from 35 percent to 5.25 percent. More than 800 companies took advantage of the legislation, saving an estimated $100 billion in the process.” [Hattip: Tim C. and Marginal Revolution.]

Show us the Body.

“Even for the hardest-core Obama loyalists, it’s rather difficult to attribute these increasingly harsh condemnations of Obama’s civil liberties, secrecy and executive power abuses to bad motives or ignorance when they’re coming from the likes of Russ Feingold, Talking Points Memo, the Center for American Progress, Nancy Pelosi, EFF, the ACLU, The New York Times Editorial Board, Keith Olbermann, Jonathan Turley, The American Prospect, Bruce Fein, Digby, along with some of the most enthusiastic Obama supporters and a bevvy of liberal law professors and international law experts — those who were most venerated by progressives during the Bush era on questions of the Constitution and executive power.“

Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald surveys the growing progressive consensus that something is rotten at Holder’s DOJ with regard to state secrets and the continuation of Bush-era policies antithetical to, if not downright contemptuous of, civil liberties. (In case you missed it here or here, I’m not happy either.) “That the Obama DOJ has repeatedly embraced the very legal theories responsible for much of the intense progressive rage towards the Bush/Cheney regime is now beyond dispute. The question of motive — of why Obama is doing this — is far less clear.“

Now, obviously, the president has a lot on his plate these days, and a finite amount of political capital with which to achieve an enormous number of objectives. Still, it’s well past time that the administration explain what’s going on on the civil liberties front from start to finish, akin to Obama’s economic overview speech at Georgetown this morning. These are not piddling matters.

Fighting “Fighting the Last War.”

“After Gates was confirmed as George W. Bush’s defense secretary in December 2006, he gave several speeches outlining major reforms that his successor should undertake–in weapons procurement, promotion policy, and the whole careerist culture inside the Pentagon. (With only two years in office, combined with a plateful of crises in Iraq and elsewhere, he knew he wouldn’t have time to take those steps himself.) When he stayed on at Barack Obama’s request, and thus became his own successor, many wondered whether he would turn his words into action. With this budget, he has begun to do just that.“

A holdover from the bookmarks of last week: Slate‘s Fred Kaplan offers a concise overview of the proposed Obama-Gates military spending reforms. (These are not spending cuts, by the way, despite what you may have heard — just some much-needed and long-overdue reprioritizing over at the Pentagon. I also like the idea of phasing out defense contractors in favor of presumably much more cost-conscious civil servants.) “This budget will not go down easily in the Pentagon or in Congress. The F-22, the DDG-1000, and the Future Combat Systems are the favored systems by much of the Air Force, Navy, and Army brass, respectively…The F-22 in particular is also a favorite of many legislators — the result of politically shrewd subcontracting that spread out production of the plane to key districts in 46 states.”

We are the World.

We are its leaders. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s give a trillion. “Mr. Brown, who organized the meeting in a hangarlike conference center in London, said: ‘This is the day the world came together to fight against the global recession. Our message today is clear and certain: we believe that global problems require global solutions.’“

In the meantime, Slate‘s Fred Kaplan applauds the return of real, honest-to-goodness American statecraft in London. “Vast multinational conferences, like the G20 summit…are useful mainly for the ‘bilaterals’ — the one-on-one side-room conversations — and, in these forums, President Barack Obama is living up to high expectations. Which is to say, the United States seems to be returning to diplomatic basics — a development that in the wake of the last eight years is practically revolutionary.“

At the very least, the president’s diplomatic mojo seemed to work on Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. “‘Yesterday I spoke about this with my new comrade President Barack Obama,’ Medvedev told reporters travelling with him to the London summit…’I liked the talks. It is easy to talk to him. He can listen. The start of this relationship is good,’ he said, adding: ‘Today it’s a totally different situation (compared to Bush).'”

He can’t get no relief.

“‘Our nation finds itself in uncharted territory in the deep emptiness of space,’ Obama announced. ‘The Old Girl has limited supplies, no allies, and now, no hope. I never said this would be an easy journey. Yet I promise you this: There is a place where there is no war and no economic turmoil. It is where, according to the Sacred Scrolls handed down to us by the Lords of Kobol, the thirteenth tribe traveled over three thousand years ago. That place is called Earth. Not the other Earth. This Earth. It’s complicated. Anyway, I plan to take us there.’“

Businessmen, they drink his wine: By way of my sis, word from The Onion is that President Obama has been depressed and distant ever since the BSG finale. “‘I’m a little concerned,’ first lady Michelle Obama was overheard saying at a fundraising event Tuesday. ‘When Firefly was canceled, he walked around like a zombie for a week, and Serenity was the only thing that snapped him out of it.’”

Not Worth the Paper They’re Printed On.

“The most preventable tragedy was the deterioration of quality. Downsized local publications were all but forced to rely on more national content, but that content didn’t have to become so vapid…But that’s what happened. Rather than investing in the valuable steel and concrete of hard reporting, national news outlets began printing the most worthless kind of commercial paper — rumors, personality profiles and other such speculative derivatives that consumers could find elsewhere.“

Don’t cry for the end of the newspaper, says Salon‘s David Sirota (who also seems to be feeling a bit Howard Beale-ish right about now.) They brought it on themselves. “‘In place of comprehensive, complex and idiosyncratic coverage, readers of even the most serious newspapers were offered celebrity and scandal, humor and light provocation,’ says journalist-turned-director David Simon, whose HBO series ‘The Wire’ examined this trend.” (Simon has more to say on the subject here.)

As Jack Shafer reminds us, newspapers were scurrilous, scandal-ridden, partisan rags long before they were bastions of citizenship and good journalism. Still, now that the broadsheets have mostly followed their television brethren down the road of endless horse-race-type political coverage and surface-skimming trivialities, what’s their purpose, really? We can get bad, rushed, smart-alecky journalism from TV and the web.

Prisoners of our Own Device.

“‘The commission could be the most ambitious attempt to re-examine and reform the criminal justice system since the 1960s,’ said Mark Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group that supports reducing incarceration rates. ‘It is a huge undertaking,’ he said.” As he promised a few months ago, Sen. Jim Webb begins the push for a bipartisan commission on prison reform. (Webb’s effort drew particular kudos from Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald this morning.)

Speaking of which, count me among the many (like Greenwald) who found Obama’s glib answer on drug decriminalization during the online town hall the other day to be too smug and snickering by half. People are spending their lives in prison for basically harmless behavior that he — and countless other tsk-tsking political elites — engaged in. That’s not really something to chuckle about.

That being said, it’s obvious that, with everything else going on, Obama has nowhere near the political capital he would need to deal with this sort of thing right now, even if he does possess the inclination. But, Webb’s proposed commission might be exactly the sort of body that could grant Obama the cover he needs to get serious about drug and prison reform. In fact, other than punting on a popular issue like social security, which prison reform emphatically isn’t, that’s pretty much the sole purpose of a bipartisan commission.

Update: In very related news, NY Gov. David Paterson announces a deal has been struck to soften NY’s draconian Rockefeller drug laws and get rid of many mandatory minimums. “‘Since 1973, New York has had the harshest drug laws in the country, and they have simply not worked,’ Paterson said Friday in a radio interview.”

A Fork in the Road.

“It’s a debate that the Bush administration never seriously had in the seven years following the post-9/11 invasion. Now, by contrast, in the wake of three major strategic reviews, Obama is extending and deepening the discussion of Afghanistan, because the outcome of this debate may set the course of American foreign policy for the remainder of his presidency.” Counter-terrorism (CT) or counter-insurgency (COIN)? In Slate, Fred Kaplan discusses the major decision on Afghanistan before Obama this week.

Update: “‘We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,’ Obama said. ‘That is the goal that must be achieved.’” The president announces our new Af-Pak strategy. Sounds like the COINS won out. Update 2: Or did they? Call it CT-plus.