The Washington Post's Support For Torture, Ctd

by Andrew

Glenn Greenwald dissects another example of the rank corruption of the MSM:

Who are the Post's sources for this full-scale vindication of Dick Cheney's defense of torture?  "Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified"; "one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding"; "one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said"; "One former agency official."  It's unclear how much overlap there is in that orgy of pro-Cheney anonymity, but there is not a single on-the-record source to corroborate the Torture-Saved-Us-From-Mass-Death narrative, nor is there even a shred of information about the motives or views of these "officials."

What makes the Post's breathless vindication of torture all the more journalistically corrupt is that the document on which it principally bases these claims -- the just-released 2004 CIA Inspector General Report -- provides no support whatsoever for the view that torture produced valuable intelligence, despite the fact that it was based on the claims of CIA officials themselves...

The Post article today is one of the most astoundingly vapid and misleading efforts yet to justify torture -- a true museum exhibit for the transformation of American journalism into little more than mindless amplifiers for those in power.  It simultaneously touts facts as new revelations that have, in fact, long been claimed (that KSM provided valuable intelligence), while deceitfully implying facts that are without any evidence whatsoever (that he did so because he was tortured).  Dick Cheney couldn't have said it better himself.  It's so strange how often that's true of The Liberal Media.

The WaPo is, I'm afraid, in almost terminal decline. Its enmeshment in power is far more striking these days than its search for the truth. Which is why it fires those columnists who call torture by its real name and gives war criminals anonymity to further their own self-defense.