“When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures….”

From Der Spiegel, in the New York Times.

Well, I hate to say I told you so….

But I wrote about this in relation to the torture of women in Iraq in July- August 2004.
and in relation to rendition flights in December 2005

and in relation to undisclosed abuse in February 2006.

and in relation to the way the media works in such things in November 2005

and in relation to the broader picture: opinion-making and legal culture in my book.

Investigative journalism is a bit irrelevant in all this, ultimately. Any one with a ear for truth can hear when people are lying. The real question is why do people not have a ear for lies anymore? Why are they selective about what lies they want to fall for and what they want to see through? I would venture to guess here — but I think — a little black humor here — I will wait for copyright protection first.

And even then, maybe, pass.

Why go out to educate people, I wonder. Who are they to me? They should be free to be ignorant.

Education, in my humble elitist opinion, is not for everyone. It is not a right. It is a privilege (and a punishment) for those who go looking for that sort of privilege and punishment. It demands self-discipline, humility before truth, and ethical behavior to your fellow man. And even then, it is not entirely in your hands how or where you get it.

It will come to you…. or depart from you as the spirit lists.

Let him who has ears hear…..