Andrew Sullivan Quotes
The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy.
Sullivan, Andrew. Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021. Simon & Schuster, 2021.
The George W. Bush administration had issued a memorandum to key Federal Agencies stating that certain types of torture were legal—a finding that was quickly repudiated after Bush and VP Cheney—who was a leading force for allowing torture of terrorism suspects—were out of office. But Bush had told the American People and the World that the United States will not torture any prisoners. The dilemma was “solved” when someone came up with this euphemism.
The reason for these creative phrases was that President George W, Bush had publicly stated that it was United States policy to follow American and International Law and the U. S. does “not torture”. The CIA then decided that it should destroy the videos of the episodes where these euphemisms were used when they were accused of torture and there were calls for prosecution for violation of U. S. law.
During that period some terrorists were handed over to Saudi Arabian and Egyptian authorities for interrogation. These countries had no qualms about torture. Goss never answered the question about that practice.
It should be noted that at the beginning of the manual the reader is told that force or involuntary interrogation is illegal. Then later, the manual tells the interrogator that headquarters approval is required for unwilling subjects. See {597792}. Throughout the beginning of the War on Terrorism the principle was quietly used in incarcerating Taliban and other terrorists.
Andrew Michael Sullivan is a British-American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of The New Republic, and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, The Daily Dish, in 2000, and eventually moved his blog to platforms, including Time, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and finally an independent subscription-based format. He announced his retirement from blogging in 2015. From 2016 to 2020, Sullivan was a writer-at-large at New York. His newsletter The Weekly Dish was launched in July 2020.
