A Pilgrim’s Digression

Justice Dept. Memo Says Torture ‘May Be Justified’ (washingtonpost.com)

This just proves that if you want to torture someone, let your lawyers develop a convincing legal strategy beforehand. One can imagine a wife murderer hiring a team of lawyers prior to the act. “Now if I establish conditions under which she attacks me first, what then would be the legal consequence?” or “How does U.S. code distinguish between murder committed with a knife or murder committed with a gun? What if I use a garrot?”

This would be funny, except that the Administation lawyers are probably perfectly correct. I have no doubt they have checked and double-checked every law book, crossed every eye and drank all the tea. The worst is that I have difficulty even caring. Callousness is a common condition in society today. I don’t blame the war, because it hardly seems like we are at war. Nothing is real anymore; it all happens on TV, somewhere else.