Sullivan on the Torture State

Blogger Andrew Sullivan is writing extensively on the recent release of the 'torture memos'. Here is one particularly important paragraph:

...what is far more important and far graver is the decision after the 2004
re-election, after the original period of panic, to set up a torture program,
replete with every professional and bureaucratic nicety. This is why the
Bradbury memo of 2005 is so much more chilling in its way. This was long after
Abu Ghraib, long after the initial panic, and a pre-meditated attempt to turn
the US into a secret torture state. These legal memos construct a form of
torture, through various classic torture techniques, used separately and in
combination, that were to be used systematically, by a professional torture team
along the lines proposed by Charles Krauthammer, and buttressed by a small army
of lawyers, psychologists and doctors - especially doctors - to turn the US into
a torture state. The legal limits were designed to maximize the torture while
minimizing excessive physical damage, to take prisoners to the edge while making
sure, by the use of medical professionals, that they did not die and would not
have permanent injuries.