Thursday, January 24, 2008

Crash test dummies

Dick Cheney, perhaps feeling that he has some catching up to do having accounted for only 48 of the administration's 935 lies about Saddam Hussein's Iraq, was at the right-wing Heritage Foundation yesterday to argue in favour of the War on Terror in general and George Bush's right to engage in warrantless electronic snooping on Americans in particular. Using his standard "serious" monotone for which the pundits are suckers, this was among his arguments --

In addition, a small number of terrorists, high-value targets held overseas, have gone through a tougher interrogation program run by the CIA. These include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. The procedures of the CIA program are designed to be safe.

Think about the actual meaning of that last sentence. One only has to design something to be safe if there's a possibility that otherwise it could be fatal. So what are they doing that has to be designed to be safe?

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