Alternet on the White House's recent 'document dump

Alternet has the following article on the recent White House document dump:AlterNet: War on Iraq: Document Dump Deception. The article raises two very interesting points. First, "In the memo Bush says that detainees should be treated consistent with the Geneva conventions only "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity." The "military necessity" exception is so broad and vague it effectively allows the protections of the Geneva convention to be ignored at will". I think this analysis is right on the money. The entire concept of "military necessity" is totally up in the air, and I think that the recent debate on the issue really illustrates this. For example, we have folks suggesting that torture would be justified is it could prevent a major attack or whatever. If this "end-justify-the-means" type of example rises to the level "military necessity" then what happened at Abu Ghraib would not contradict what was set out in the memo. The second interesting point is the whole timeline question: Although the administration released a February 2002 memo by President Bush addressing the treatment of prisoners it didn't address the critical question: "Did the President sign any directive regarding the treatment or interrogation of detainees after February 7, 2002?" And although the last document released was dated April 16, 2003 the worst abuses are known to have occurred months later". I think this is particularly important simply because is Sy Hersh's article taught us anything, the interrogation policies were not standing policies, but were instead developed over time in response to problems occuring in Iraq.