Chicken or the Egg -- a Memo or Torture

When it comes to the ongoing saga about torture perpetrated by the US, much of the controversy is buried in semantics. The Bush administration continues to categorically deny that it has authorized torture. It is able to do this in two ways -- first much of the torture has been outsourced, and second it defines torture in ways that require something akin to something Sweeney Todd might do -- organ failure and death, those seem to be the limits.
Scott Horton raises the question of John Yoo's culpability in all of this. John Yoo, of course, is the former Justice Department lawyer who drew up the memos that either guided Administration policy or justified it after the fact. That is the question Horton raises here in an LA Times op-ed piece. At the root of the issue is whether Yoo can be held accountable, or whether he was just offering requested advice. He wasn't in the implementation department, so he shouldn't be blamed if the administration took him up on the advice. I personally don't think that flies, but the other part of the question revolves around whether this was a practice searching for a justification, and Yoo was quite willing to provide it.
Whatever the case may be, it would seem that the Bush Administration is up to its hip boots in a scandal waiting to break. If, it does come out that the Administration knowingly engaged in conduct that is illegal not only on international grounds but national grounds, who will be held accountable. I've opposed impeachment efforts, and at this point in Bush's tenure it's not likely to get underway quickly enough to make a difference, there is a further issue of what happens next. Barack Obama has suggested that an enquiry will take place should he be elected. Would John McCain be willing to do the same?

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