ARMY FIELD MANUAL REVISED TO SUPPORT BUSH-TYPE TORTURE

My usual tradition on this blog is, I don't comment on stories so pervasive in the media that my readers will be otherwise exposed to them unless I have a unique perspective or personal passion to do so.

I was sure this was the case with the McCain torture amendment, but I am now otherwise persuaded. Having heard on the radio that the McCain amendment, which hinges on the guidance of the Army Field Manual, was being undermined by revisions in that same manual, I assumed that the whole world would shortly know that fact. Unfortunately, I have seen little or next to nothing in the MSM about it.

The Bush-McCain compromise changes very little. The interrogation practices banned are limited to those not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, which can be-is being-revised. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Army has approved a 10-page secret addendum to the Army field manual, a move that one Pentagon official described as "a stick in McCain's eye." McCain's chief of staff minced no words in describing the move as "politically obtuse" and undertaken without "one molecule of political due diligence."

So now you know.

Tags: torture, McCain amendment, Army field manual