Questions about a CIA videotape of interrogation of some suspected terrorists - like what happened to the tape and who saw it and who ordered it destroyed - are sure to occupy many people.
Thankfully, Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly has some insight into what we already know about one of the prisoners interrogated, Abu Zubaydah:
"So here's what the tapes would have shown: not just that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative, but that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative who was (a) unimportant and low-ranking, (b) mentally unstable, (c) had no useful information, and (d) eventually spewed out an endless series of worthless, fantastical "confessions" under duress. This was all prompted by the president of the United States, implemented by the director of the CIA, and the end result was thousands of wasted man hours by intelligence and and law enforcement personnel.
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