Torture Pushed Despite Legal Opinions

The Senate Armed Services Committee has reviewed documents surrounding the treatment of prisoners, and it now appears that the orders for torture came from the top down, not from the bottom up, as Rumsfeld and the rest of his merry band of sadists had insisted.

They were aggressively soliciting tortures from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) community, which was created to help US soldiers resist torture, so it's clear that they knew.

What's more, the sort of torture that SERE was created to combat was torture that had our servicemen lying, not revealing secrets.

They did not care that torture creates lies. They were not interested in accurate information. They just wanted to torture, because it made them feel strong.

This even shocked the sensabilities of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), though I have little doubt that when push comes to shove, he'll cover for Bush and His Evil Minions^™:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the legal analysis from administration lawyers in 2002 will "go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation's military and intelligence communities."

....

In separate memos, the lawyers told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the techniques warranted further study and could be illegal.

Seriously, these people need to go to jail for the rest of their lives.