Gitmo interrogators told to destroy evidence

When I was a kid, there was a sitcom on TV called "Hogan's Heroes". The show centered around a group of Allied prisoners in a German POW camp during World War II. One of the main characters was the bumbling Sergeant Schultz, who would look the other way while the prisoners communicated "secretly" with Allied command and engaged in other hijinks. When called to account, Schultz's response was always, "I hear nothing! I see nothing! I know nothing!"

We've been hearing a lot of these kinds of denials from various members of the Bush regime over the past few years. And destruction of physical evidence. Like all those missing e-mails.

And now the Associated Press has alerted us to more evidence tampering:

The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defense lawyer said Sunday.

The lawyer for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to him by prosecutors and suggest the U.S. deliberately thwarted evidence that could help terror suspects defend themselves at trial.

Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions.

[...]

"The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues," the document is quoted as saying in an affidavit signed by Kuebler.

Yeah. Destroying the evidence of torture can keep to a minimum the application of laws that prevent courts from considering confessions and other info obtained via torture.

And destroying the evidence of torture can make it appear as though it never happened.

I hear nothing! I see nothing! I know nothing!

But, just as in Sergeant Schultz's case, the lack of corroborated evidence does not undo an action. It just keeps it hidden from those of us who give a damn. Just as the Bushies would have it.

That is not justice. And it only makes the terrorists more angry and the U.S. more vulnerable.