Here is a chilling thought. Barack Obama has gifted a dangerous advantage to America's enemies. How? By assuring terrorists they will not be tortured in US custody. The president, this argument runs, should have kept al-Qaeda guessing as to what fate detainees might suffer at the hands of CIA interrogators.
Mr Obama has sparked considerable controversy by declassifying secret memorandums detailing the interrogation methods used by the CIA in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001. The practices included near-drowning, confining detainees in small boxes, slamming them into walls, sleep deprivation and enforced nakedness. Some of the techniques were borrowed from the harrowing experiences of US soldiers held captive in Hanoi during the Vietnam war.
Yet those who authorised these “enhanced interrogation techniques” still deny they amounted to torture. The memorandums explain why. The lengthy justifications set out by Bush administration lawyers remind us how legal bureaucratese can empty the law of any real meaning.