Did the CIA torture terrorism suspects in secret overseas prisons? Apparently, that’s none of the American public’s business, said Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. A federal appeals court ruled last week that five terrorism suspects arrested shortly after 9/11 could not sue the CIA for alleged torture in secret overseas jails because the case might divulge classified government information. In a 6–5 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit aimed at the practice of “extraordinary rendition,’’ in which suspects were sent to foreign countries to be interrogated. The lead plaintiff, Binyam Mohamed, said he’d been held in a so-called CIA black site prison, where torturers cut his penis with a scalpel and poured hot liquid on the open wounds. It was not surprising that the Bush administration tried to hide such hideous practices, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com. But Barack Obama’s Justice Department also insisted that the case be dismissed to protect national security. Aren’t you Democrats glad you voted for Obama?
Don’t make any assumptions, said Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard. In its haste to condemn this decision, the liberal media has glossed over the fact that the plaintiffs’ torture claims are “bizarre, extreme, and entirely unproven.” Mohamed had been trained in a notorious al Qaida camp for an attack inside the U.S., which is why he was interrogated. Rather than trying to substantiate Mohamed’s accusations—the practices he alleges certainly would have left scars—journalists have simply repeated them. The court had full access to secret intelligence documents, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, and noted that they indicated the government “is not invoking the [state secrets] privilege to avoid embarrassment.” In other words, there was no evidence supporting Mohamed’s claims. As for Obama, his position on the lawsuit indicates that “this administration has its grown-up moments.”
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