The context presumably being that these were terrorists (albeit uncharged, untried, and unconvicted, of course), who for that reason did not have any inherent natural god-given rights under the laws of Nature’s God, which are not the same as the laws made by men.
This article by Mark Mazzetti rather amusingly details some new finger-pointing at the C.I.A. about who authorized the destruction of these hundreds of videotapes documenting the “brutal interrogation” torture of Abu Zubaydah and Abd-Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri in Thailand. It’s not clear from the Times piece whether the torture was carried out by the C.I.A. or by Thai authorities, but the prisoners were in C.I.A. custody and the interrogations were videotaped by C.I.A. officials.
I say “amusingly” because it is somewhat amusing — in a stomach-turning kind of way — to read these high-ranking C.I.A. people arguing over who authorized the tapes’ destruction, who told whom and when, who was livid after finding out, and in general what a serious matter this is, when they all know that it doesn’t matter what they claim now, because the tapes are gone, gone, gone. They can cry all the crocodile tears they want about this one “never agreed” that the tapes should be destroyed and is “just as upset” as this other one over here is that the tapes were destroyed, when the reality is, the tapes were destroyed — and that’s all that really matters, right?
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