Unsavoury as it is, waterboarding has become as much a feature of the War on Terror as the ‘Guess the Location Game’ to be played with each new Osama video released.

So when the U.S. Department of Justice released memos earlier today that provided the legal framework for the CIA’s waterboarding tactics, they were met with not only a degree of disdain, but also a soupçon of faux surprise.

According to Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock, the memos furnished torturers with veritable ‘get-out-of-jail-free cards’:

Torture is banned under international and US domestic laws, but those laws are only meaningful if they are enforced. Brushing torture, rendition and illegal detention under the carpet will not provide closure – the facts should be brought out into the open through an independent commission of inquiry. Those who have broken the law – no matter what rank they hold – should be prosecuted under the law. [Source]

And indeed they were swept out, a move that Hancock applauds as a welcome change:

It’s welcome that the remaining memos have been published. There will only be accountability where there is transparency, and President Obama rightly wants to draw a line under the human rights abuses of the ‘War on Terror’.

It’s hooray, Obama, then, as he breaks with tradition and infuses clandestinity into the daily proceedings.

Ultimately, though it is stopping such tactics that counts, rather than the mere admission.

The offering of four lambs to the slaughter is, after all, just a token gesture to distract while the majority of torturers escape unscathed.

Unlike their captives, that is.

To read more on the protection of CIA torturers from prosecution, click here.