Fuzzy Torture Techniques

President Barack Obama has released part of the torture memos. Rep. John Shimkus (IL-19) has seen the memos just like everyone else by now. For him, the jury is still out. He still doesn't know if the techniques (i.e., waterboarding) are torture. For anyone else with a conscience (and a modicum of common sense and decency), the decision is quite simple.

These memos show that what happened at Abu Graib and what happened at Guantanamo were not some bad apples, these were decisions made at the highest levels of our government.

In an interview with WSIL TV, McLeansboro, Shimkus simply dismissed and clumsily justified the contents of the memos: Now the cats out of the bag, now we ought to see if this was helpful and again protecting us from further attack or with what people are talking about a second wave.

Shimkus wants Pres. Obama to release all the documents to be fair because his friend, Former Vice president Dick Cheney, says there are memos documenting the success of torture (the torture that Shimkus does not identify with). So Shimkus has a suggestion: Get Congress involved to weigh in on the issues: We have credible members of congress who've had limbs broken, hung upside down on meat hooks, you name it. They know what torture is, let them be part of this debate about whether enhanced interrogation is torture.

For a butter bar that spent his entire time as an XO in the Fulda Gap in the early 1980s, this thought process would make sense. It makes sense to those lacking in common sense.