obviously what Rice wanted people to hear

Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2131863

what's in the major U.S. newspapers.


Messy Condi-meant
By Eric Umansky
Posted Thursday, Dec. 8, 2005, at 4:14 AM ET

<<snip>>

The Washington Post fronts the shooting but deems Secretary of State Rice's latest, and deeply ambiguous, comments on the U.S.'s treatment of detainees lead-worthy. Said Rice: "The United States' obligations under the CAT (Convention Against Torture), which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States."

The Post is alone in asserting that Rice's comments herald a significant change. Here's how the WP's coverage begins:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the United States prohibits all its personnel from using cruel or inhuman techniques in prisoner interrogations, whether inside or outside U.S. borders. Previous public statements by the Bush administration have asserted that the ban did not apply abroad.

That is obviously what Rice wanted people to hear—that U.S. personnel are prohibited from engaging in "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" anywhere. But it is not what she said. Here's the out: While Rice asserted that the U.S. abides by the "obligations" of the anti-torture treaty across the globe, the administration's legal position is that those "obligations" don't extend to the treatment of foreigners being held overseas. In other words, according to the administration's long-standing legal position, CIA interrogators in, say, secret prisons in North Africa aren't bound to treat foreign prisoners humanely.

The Post wasn't the only one to have a tough time getting a read of Rice's circumlocutions. Her underlings did, too. "State Department officials" in the NYT talked up her comments as "an important policy statement," with one adding that it was "a change" in policy. One of those "officials" might want to poke their head out of the door and chat with the State Department spokesman who, according to the LAT, insisted that Rice's comments simply reiterated what has already "been the U.S. policy."

Repeat lies and omissions until the cows come home, and you won't have to be accountable and responsible!

get their lies straight anymore.

actually caring anymore due to the sheer amount of intentional nonsense.

Merely that they existed.

what is not said is the most damaging.