Because if anybody expected the Spanish Inquisition, it'd spoil the surprise!

And speaking of CIA, their torture psychologist James Mitchell has called up The Guardian to complain about the vicious way he is (apparently) characterized in the Senate select committee report as a, um, torture psychologist:

"It's a lot more complicated than that," Mitchell told the Guardian in his first public comments since he was linked to the CIA's enhanced interrogation program seven years ago.

"I'm just a guy who got asked to do something for his country by people at the highest level of government, and I did the best that I could."

I think he must have meant "a lot less complicated".

Mitchell has a remarkably explanation of why nobody has ever found that enhanced or heightened or supercharged interrogation techniques are a reliable way of obtaining information: It's a black op! The spooks want you to believe torture is ineffective so they can have a monopoly on it:

Mitchell said the program's successes had been deliberately ignored.

"I'm sure there are people out there who believe that if the United States acknowledged that coercion worked, there is an increased probability that people would use coercion against our people," Mitchell said. "Never mind that they do anyway. In the fairyland they live in, all you have to do is give somebody some tea and a cookie, and everything will be OK."

He also stresses his non-partisanship in an appealing way:

He mounted a full-throated defense of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies and attacked "partisan Democrats" for "throwing me under the bus" and "rewriting history."

He also criticized Obama's healthcare policy – a "shit sandwich" – and his administration's approach to global warming. Mitchell believes it's a myth.

He identified himself politically as an independent. "I'm not a Republican or a Mormon or a gun nut or power hungry."

Well, thanks for clarifying.