If You're Not Outraged...

... You're really not paying attention. Go read the..

New York Times

Or Google "torture" and "CIA" and start reading.

Anyone who saw me blogging in September 2007 on Savage Minds knows that I'm skeptical about the relative importance of Raphael Patai's book, The Arab Mind, as a handbook for torturers or their upper level keepers, despite what Sy Hersh wrote (and other anthropologists have written).

However, I don't underestimate the role of lawyers or high-level policymakers in setting the conditions for torture - nor should you. Despite the scandal and furor over Abu Ghraib, it would seem that the Bush Administration didn't learn its lesson. Now we hear that the Department of Justice and the White House continued issuing secret legal documents that allow certain forms of what his administration very euphemistically refers to as "tough, safe, necessary and lawful" techniques.

If all of this is so legal and above board, why the secrecy?