--- On Wed, 4/22/09, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Waterboarding Bodies Mattered To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 9:43 PM What Ursula says could be true IF the memos were written solely to be released later as a form of justification for administration abuses. Of course that requires the byzantine assumption that government officials were planning four (or seven!) years into the future -- when in fact, we mostly know that the government is barely aware of what is happening at any given moment. _____ * No, the memos were written solely for Eric's inellectual benefit and edification in techniques of torture, like those of Bernardo Gui. Who can tell exactly when the memos were written ? Whenever they written, they were written for the purpose of justifying the officials who wrote them. So the key question is if they bothered to write them at the time it was happening, or wrote them later and predated them ? While the second answer is more probable, it's a completely trivial question either way. O.K.