There's a long list of women we shouldn't have in power, just as long as the list of men.
Here's my most recent favorite, retired Lt. Col. Diane Beaver (quit snickering), who was the top military lawyer at Gitmo.
AP reports that in a recently revealed memo:
Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, explains that the Defense Department had made a practice of hiding prisoners who were being treated harshly, even abusively, from the International Committee of the Red Cross, a non-governmental body empowered to monitor compliance with Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of military prisoners.
Beaver also confirmed that the military was secretly using previously forbidden techniques, such as sleep deprivation, but hiding them so as not to draw "negative attention," according to minutes of the meeting.
"Officially it is not happening," Beaver said, according to minutes from the meeting. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."
Beaver said interrogators should "curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around."
Beaver was speaking at an Oct. 2, 2002 meeting between CIA and military lawyers and military intelligence officials on how to counter the resistance of Guantanamo detainees to military interrogation.
Beaver's comments suggest that the CIA's practice of hiding unregistered "ghost detainees" from the ICRC at military jails may have been as much in service to the Pentagon's interrogation program as it was to the CIA's.
A senior CIA lawyer at the meeting, John Fredman, explained that whether harsh interrogation amount to torture "is a matter of perception." The only sure test for torture is if the detainee died.
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin is holding hearings on all this today, and maybe we'll get to see Diane in person. Oh, goody.
I say, put her on trial. And all the rest of them.
Hear, hear!
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