1115.org

If that sounds like a line from a love song, that’s because it is. (To date myself hopelessly: Leaving On A Jet Plane, by John Denver.) The Bush administration, though, is giving meanings to that line that Denver probably never intended.

Here’s the Bush administration’s carefully considered opinion on the consequences of torture: If we torture you, we can never let you go. We can never even let you speak to another human being who is not a card-carrying torturer or who doesn’t have a top-secret security clearance.

Mr. Khan was one of the al-Qaeda suspects who was detained in a secret prison of the CIA and subjected to “alternative” interrogation tactics — the administration’s chilling phrase for methods most people regard as torture. Now the government is arguing that by subjecting detainees to such treatment, the CIA gives them “top secret” classified information — and the government can then take extraordinary measures to keep them quiet about it.
[…]
CIA official Marilyn A. Dorn said in an affidavit that Mr. Khan might reveal “the conditions of detention and specific alternative interrogation procedures.” In other words, grossly mistreating a detainee now justifies keeping him quiet.

We have seen with our own eyes, on prime time TV, our glorious President’s panting lust for subjecting suspected suspects to “alternative” interrogation tactics. Now it turns out that even if our most formidable water-boarders declare you innocent, you’ve already been sentenced to solitary confinement for life. Just because our President decided to torture you. You may be innocent of any terrorist activity, but you’re now guilty of forcing us to torture you. And that gets you locked away for far longer than confessing to terrorist activity.

Even Kafka never dared to imagine such scenarios.