Have you read James Risen's State of War?

[BurtWorm]

I'm reading it now. In addition to breaking the NSA wiretapping scandal, Risen also cites a statement Bush made to George Tenant in March 2002 after al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydha was arrested indicating that the Bushist torture policy probably came directly from Bush. During his capture, Zubaydah had been injured with a shot to the groin (among other places) and was in excrutiating pain without heavy doses of morphine. He was spirited out of Pakistan by the CIA to Thailand for interrogation. Not long afterwards, Tenant was giving Bush a report on the progress of the interrogation and learned that Zubaydah was not terribly coherent under the morphine. "Who told anyone to give him the pain medication?" Bush asked.

Risen suggests this may have been Bushist "plain speaking," what normal people would call "talking shit." But it's also of a piece with the policy of disappearing "enemy combatants," rendering them to countries that torture or to top secret CIA prisons in Africa and Eastern Europe.

There's much more to this depressing and infuriating book than the wiretapping, which is bad enough. And as the media aren't discussing it any longer, it's incumbent upon anyone who wants to know what has happened to this country under the Bushists to seek it out and read it. This is information everyone needs to know.