C'mon, Bob:
Waterboarding has always been considered as torture. The Bush lawyers raised shades of interpretation and causation as a justification for it, but that doesn't change what it is.
Like some of the other posts, I don't disagree that the guy may not be a prick, but you misread the situation to assume that he (and his supporters) do not have a strong moral position which they are striking out for---anti-secrecy.
Whether that conviction is as wrong as an abortion bomber, or one with some reasonable theoretical foundation, there is no doubt that they are driven by a moral conviction---certainly no less than Bush was.
Having said that, I realized from one of last week's cables that the idea of blinking out the names is as absurd as bleeping out a comedian's monologue---everybody in the know gets the joke, just as anyone involved in a meeting with GA Sistani's key spokesmen does not know exactly which one said what---bleeped out or not. The same with all of our local and provincial discourses.
One of the things that really disturbed me about Cidne was the breadth of what was memorialized and its broad internal accessibility (sure to be copied by somebody and passed on to our "allies." The documented knowledge, in a culture with multi-generational knowledge and accountability, that somebody's dad (or grandad) helped a "foreign" government way back in '07, will not earn medals for them....
These leaks will hurt real people, and, to a great extent, as Krauthamer noted last week, substantially limit US access and and free discourse with locals in challenging situations. Maybe it is best, after all, for all parties to understand that in an open architecture world, it is best not to say anything to anyone that you don't expect to read in the Post (or Al-Jazirah) next month?
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