black sites
Over at the New Yorker, Jane Mayer has an excellent piece on Bush’s “black site” torture regime. One outside expert “familiar with the [CIA torture] protocol” made this ominous comment:
“It’s one of the most sophisticated, refined programs of torture ever. At every stage, there was a rigid attention to detail. Procedure was adhered to almost to the letter. There was top-down quality control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process. It is just chilling.”