Torture Memos

The Bush “torture memos” that Obama released yesterday owe a heavy literary debt to George Orwell’s novel “1984.” The most blatant rip-off is the government’s now-famous plan to sic insects on captive Abu Zubaydah:

Backstory: The Bush administration yesterday released the previously classified Justice Department memo from March 14, 2003 that served as the principal legal fig leaf for US torture practices in the handling of detainees in the war on terror. Composed by John Yoo — then a staffer in the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, now a [...]