The Long Arm

Nice news from Spain. Bush Administration torture leaders Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Douglas Feith and (my personal favorite due to his intolerable smugness level) David Addington may be on the road to j-u-s-t-i-c-e:

A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

Judge Garzón, however, has built an international reputation by bringing high-profile cases against human rights violators as well as international terrorist networks like Al Qaeda. The arrest warrant for General Pinochet led to his detention in Britain, although he never faced a trial. The judge has also been outspoken about the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

Spain can claim jurisdiction in the case because five citizens or residents of Spain who were prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have said they were tortured there. The five had been indicted in Spain, but their cases were dismissed after the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained under torture was not admissible.

Right on right on. Because not only were these War Crimes and betrayals of American tradition and reputation, these were ineffective, harmful measures:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said...

...Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda...

The massive incompetence of the Cheney Administration is matched only by it's venality and corruption, Okay, that's two things it's matched by. It was a very, very dark time, and it only ended a few months ago.

It's crucial that these villains be prosecuted so that the story stays alive. Let no one forget what was done by these men and the thieves they enabled, at the highest levels of our democracy, at a time when we need righteous action instead. And, as I've often said, when the deeper truth(s) of that Bizarro administration finally come to light, it will be worse than you've imagined so far.

Or me.

Or anyone.