Release of So-Called “Torture Memos” Shifts Debate

The leak of the latest in the line of “Torture Memos” — written legal opinions in which the Department of Justice tries to give justification for its approving stance on the Orwellian- named ‘enhanced interrogation techniques‘ — has been able to shift the political debate in Washington as the new attorney general nomination is considered. The “Bradbury Memos” , named for the Justice Department official who authorized their promulgation, have created a backdrop that sounds in echo of the anti-totalitarian classic “Farenheit 451”. Neither calls for their release nor the appeal to national conscience has led to transparency or retraction.  Coupled with new disclosures that raise questions about the CIA’s own inspector general and his department, the secrecy that has for years gripped so tightly by the C.I.A., and now encouraged by the White House, is seemingly strangling only itself more strongly than the enemies it is trying to overcome.