Torture’s Blowback Posted on May 16th
THE GHOSTS of interrogations past have come back to haunt the Bush administration. This week, the legal officer supervising the military trials at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissed capital charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, who allegedly would have been the 20th hijacker during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had he not been prevented from entering the country. The decision has been widely reported as a serious setback for the administration’s quest to bring terrorists to justice. It is much more and much worse than that: It is a palpable reminder of the inhumane acts committed by U.S. personnel and sanctioned by top officials in the name of protecting Americans from extremists.
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