The U.S. Army/Republican Party cabal got into the business of water torture during the Lincoln regime(Yes, I know, what a surprise). In his book Fate of Liberty, Lincoln Cult High Priest Mark Neely, Jr. describes how Northern civilians imprisoned for opposing the regime were subjected to it. It became public knowledge because one of the persons arrested and tortured happened to be a totally innocent British subject. The British foreign minister very strongly and publicly objected, and the man was freed. But, Neely writes, the Lincoln administration did not end the practice. Lincoln was a brutal dictator, after all, who shut down most of the opposition press, imprisoned editors and newspaper owners, deported an opposition party congressman, and micromanaged the bombing and burning down of entire American cities, killing thousands of civilians. He wasn’t concerned at all about a little exposure of his uncivilized and barbaric behavior.

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Lew, to add to the Mezo column in the Washington Post, I urge everyone to check out the excellent work done by Scott Horton on Harper’s website, in shedding light on “Rumsfeld’s Lawyer” William Haynes:

“Remember that the TJAGs testified that waterboarding was unlawful under U.S. law and that there was no difficult or trying issue about it. Correct. Moreover, it’s a well settled issue under military law, with precedents going back to 1902. One of the waterboarding cases, in fact, is included in the standard JAG lawyer casebooks. So while the [DOJ Office of Legal Counsel] insists there is no precedent on the issue, the JAG officers know this is untrue–the question is long and clearly resolved. Steve Bradbury is the man Haynes has sought out for an opinion. What Bradbury knows about military law would fill a small thimble. But one area in which Bradbury is quite expert: rendering opinions that say exactly what the man who commissioned them wants to hear. Haynes’s request to Bradbury, dated January 20, 2008, can be read here, together with his cover memo to the branch secretaries. (Examine, by the way, the date stamp. Was this back-dated?)

“There are a number of striking things about Haynes’s memo. One is that he leaves nothing to the imagination. He has a view and he wants Bradbury to confirm it. This is for purposes of silencing any debate or discussion of the issue within the Pentagon.”

So, it looks like the military settled what is obvious long ago.

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