Why I am Glad Some People No Longer Work for the Government

As you may have heard, Al Queda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani was convicted of 1 one count (conspiracy to commit a bombing in Africa in the 1990's), and acquitted of 284 counts (including murder of the various people killed in the bombing). As you may also have heard, a lot of the reason why he was acquitted of many counts is that the trial judge excluded some key evidence because he found that the defendant's rights had been violated in obtaining it.

Andrew McCarthy wrote today that calling what happened to Ghailani torture is not appropriate. His point is that torture has a very specific definition in criminal law, and that Ghailani was coerced, rather than being tortured. He doesn't explain what he means by this, but I assume that he is relying upon the memos that John Yoo and Jay Bybee prepared during the Bush administration that took a very narrow view of what constitutes torture under U.S. law. The memo generated enormous controversy, and was repudiated by President Obama shortly after he took office. I disagree with the conclusions of that memo and believe that torture should have a broader definition. Regardless of where you come out on that issue, everyone seems to admit that Ghailani was subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques." Here is a list of those techniques: of what the U.S. Government has admitted happened to Ghailani:

attention grasp, facial hold, insult (facial) slap, abdominal slap, prolonged diapering, sleep deprivation (over 72 hours), stress positions, cramped confinement

Here's a link to the Southern District of New York's web page, where you can find the order. Whether or not you think it is acceptable to subject suspected terrorists to these methods in order to obtain intelligence, even Mr. McCarthy admits that "[a] coerced confession may not be used against the person who makes it because the Western notion of what a trial is would not abide such a thing."
Mr. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor. That such a person would advocate any American court, whether military, civilian or some hybrid, convict someone using evidence obtained as a result of physical and psychological coercion is frankly frightening to me. And that's why I hope that Mr. McCarthy will never again hold any public office or government position.