Haiku 042309

morning rain --
rabbit digging up
tulip bed


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Recently, we read the following:

Washington Post: “Defense Chief Gates Says He Backed Releasing CIA Memos” (by Ann Scott Tyson)

“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates indicated Thursday that he supported the release of sensitive memos on detainee interrogation methods last week because he viewed their ultimate disclosure as inevitable. Gates, a former CIA director, said his foremost concern was that CIA officers who had used the interrogation techniques should be protected from prosecution.

“Another concern, Gates said, was the possibility that the Obama administration's release of the memos would cause a "backlash in the Middle East" that could adversely affect U.S. forces operating there. In discussions, he said, senior administration officials realized the disclosure could be "used by al-Qaeda" to generate opposition against the United States....

" ‘All of us wrestled with it,’ he said when asked whether he personally supported the release of the memos. But he added that his own view was shaped by his belief that the methods would ultimately become known....”

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And we thought:

….This article reports that Mr. Gates’ support of the memos’ release “was shaped by his belief that the methods would ultimately become known.” If that was the extent of the Defense head’s concern, maybe the President needs to have a serious one-on-one with him.

We thought the administration disclosed the “torture” memos not simply because their disclosure was inevitable. We thought they were disclosed because the administration found the subject and the results of the memos – the justification of torture, the order to use torture, and the actual use of torture – to be essentially immoral and reprehensible, and that the administration wanted to clearly dissociate itself from the Bush-Cheney regime on this matter. We thought that, ultimately, the primary concern was that the Obama administration wanted the country to regain its “moral bearings”….