The Washington Post reported today that key Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, were briefed on CIA interrogation techniques during 2002. Some of the article's many unnamed sources offer up this defense of them for not objecting strenuously:

Several officials familiar with the briefings recalled that the meetings were marked by an atmosphere of deep concern about the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack.

"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings.

Atrios rightfully wonders:

I'm wondering where the not "thinking clearly" exception to law, constitution, and international treaty exists.

The joke here, of course, is that not only is there no such exception, there's the opposite of an exception. This is Article 2.1 of the international Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

There's a reason for this provision: 7,000 years of human history. Torture is always justified as being in response to some threat, real or imagined. If you allow torture when the perpetrators say they're "in a panic," you're going to get lots and lots of torture.

The Washington Post article may be unfair to Pelosi et al in some way. Or it may not. In any case, the "we were scared!" defense is no defense at all.