Obama releases torture Memos

The biggest development today has been Barack Obama releasing various memos written by lawyers in the Bush Administration Office of Legal Counsel which supposedly gave Americans legal cover to torture. Of course, torture is not only against U.S. law (no matter what OLC lawyers say), but it is also against International Law, which is why Spain is currently investigating these OLC lawyers for war crimes. If the U.S. doesn't do it, then Spain can, and should. Regardless, there are a lot of shocking excerpts that are out there today, but I would point people to Glenn Greenwald's post specifically the updates. Legally speaking, the most dishonest argument I've seen so far comes from Jay Bybee, who, thanks to President Bush, now has a lifetime appointment to a federal court:

You would like to place [Abu] Zabaydeh in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects.

...

[T]he insect's placement in the box would not constitute a threat of severe physical pain or suffering to a reasonable person in his position. And individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpiller was placed in the box.

The lawyers also try to redefine what "pain or suffering" means, essentially saying that "pain or suffering" actually means "pain and suffering". It's honestly just unreal. There's so much legal dishonesty going on that it's impossible to document. This is basically what the lawyers have done: they take the words of the law, redefine the words in a completely dishonest and incomprehensible way, and then say "see, according to the law, it's not torture! No one can possibly fear pain or suffering from a caterpillar.... oh, wait, or suffering? Well, whoever wrote that must have made a mistake, it really means pain and suffering. You have to fear both."


UPDATE:

Looks like an emailer into Andrew Sullivan had the same take as me