In case you were worried that someone would be held accountable for the destruction of the CIA torture tapes, it seems you can relax

Hamster Shredder - Because micro generation is the future, and everyone is responsible

This hamster-powered shredder, the brainchild of weird genius Tom Ballhatchet, probably wouldn't be much good for videotapes, and the hamster probably wouldn't much enjoy a bed of videotape shards. Luckily, the CIA has access to higher-tech gear.

"The deadline for prosecuting someone under most federal laws is five years."

-- from Pete Yost's AP report, 

"No charges for destroying CIA interrogation videos"

by Ken

Okay, that thing about the statute of limitations may not sound like stop-the-presses news, but it really does seem to be the heart of this afternoon's breaking news about the investigation into the destruction of that heap of torture tapes. Surely no one believes that on the very last day of that five-year window, after three years' worth of investigation spanning two presidential administrations, the special prosecutor assigned to whitewash . . . sorry, I mean to look into the CIA's deep-sixing of 92 videos of al-Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri being interrogated with what seems to have been a veritable cascade of waterboarding has decided, nuh-uh, it's all cool on the evidence-destruction front.

It's still possible that somebody might get his knuckles rapped for fibbing in the course of the investigation. Why, the AP's Pete Yost reports that the special prosecutor, John Durham, is continuing "an investigation into whether the harsh questioning went beyond legal boundaries." This line of inquiry, as we'll see, was actually initiated by the Obama Justice Department, which thereby set itself off ever slightly from the GWB DoJ, unless you count practical results, of which -- I'm going way out on a limb and guessing -- there won't be any. It's a shame there aren't, like, videotapes of the torture being carried out. (Oh, right. Oops!)

I'm not so much interested in making living hells of the lives of the on-the-ground torturers, who may conceivably have had reason to believe that what they were doing was duly authorized, especially when you consider the kind of people up the chain of command who would have had the authority to authorize. Now those are the people who need to be held to account, ideally as high up that chain as the evidence will lead. Hmm, evidence, evidence . . .

Yost fills in the background on the CIA's unhappy venture into Candid Camera Land:

In January 2008, President George W. Bush's last attorney general, Michael Mukasey, appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham a special prosecutor to investigate the videotape destruction. Later, President Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, added the inquiry into the conduct of the harsh questioning.

A team of prosecutors and FBI agents led by Durham has conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter, said Matthew Miller, chief Justice Department spokesman.

"As a result of that investigation, Mr. Durham has concluded that he will not pursue criminal charges for the destruction of the interrogation videotapes," Miller said.

The department's carefully phrased announcement did not rule out the possibility of charging someone with lying to investigators looking into the tape destruction.

Irony enthusiasts my appreciate the information that the videotaping of the interrogations was begun "to prove that interrogators followed broad rules Washington had laid out." However, almost immediately "top officials at agency headquarters in Langley, Va., began discussing whether to destroy the tapes." They were concerned, you see, that if the tapes should somehow get out, the "dozens of CIA officers and contractors cycled in and out of Thailand to help with the questioning" could be identified.

Yost details the history of the apparently inexorable march to destruction of the tapes, based on a cornucopia of documents unearthed in the course of the investigation. It all appears to tracks uncannily with flashes of political heat concerning U.S. torture policy, which can apparently be summed up as:

"We don't torture, except when we do, and when we do it's OK, 'cause if the president does it it's legal, so shut the fuck up or you'll make us really mad, and who knows what we might do?"

I suppose it is a coincidence that the five-year term expires smack in the midst of George W. "We Don't Torture Ha-Ha" Bush's book tour. Do you suppose these developments may trigger nostalgia for those good old days?

For those who keep track of such things, it took about 3½ hours to destroy the tapes. At least we aren't being asked to believe that, possibly wracked by guilt or despondence, they committed suicide.

By way of reminder: U.S. law forbids the use of torture, and we are signatories to international agreements that require us to investigate and prosecute accusations of same. I just thought I'd mention it. Carry on.

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