Bastards admit bastardy shock

Andy Worthington
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday October 16 2008 15.00 BST
Article history
The revelation, in yesterday's Washington Post, that the Bush administration "issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects" will increase calls for the administration to be held to account for its actions.
It is unlikely, though, that this revelation will lead to significant activity, beyond adding more voices to grassroots impeachment campaigns in the United States – although it may lead to a strengthening of plans in various European countries to indict senior officials for war crimes. As law professor Scott Horton explained in June, the best that opponents of the regime can hope for is that the "Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans."
The problem for all parties concerned is that the administration itself still refuses to concede that it has engaged in torture, and is being allowed to get away with it in the two places where opposition could really count: the Senate and the House of Representatives.