A Day Late

On one hand I was pleased to hear Jackie Leyden interview Mark Danner on Sunday's ATC regarding his recent articles in the New York Review of Books and the NYT about the ICRC-documented evidence of torture ordered by the Bush administration and practiced by the CIA. On the other hand it's frustrating that NPR is again the Johnny-come-lately to a story of such importance - covering it only when it is safely established. As Danner notes in his NY Review of Books article, the story of US torture is nothing new - it's been sitting out there just waiting for serious reporting since late in 2002, citing part of an article from the WaPo in December 2002 and noting "A similarly lengthy report followed a few months later on the front page of The New York Times ('Interrogations: Questioning Terror Suspects in a Dark and Surreal World')."

One can wish that NPR would follow up this long overdue report with information on the Convention Against Torture which, as Glenn Greenwald noted last month, the US signed under Reagan and ratified in 1994, and which obliges (with no exceptions allowed) the US government to investigate and prosecute any government officials who participated in or were complicit in torture. One can wish, eh?