Do You Want Obama to pursue Prosecution For Torture

When you start a sentence with, "The strongest evidence is," it's usually a good idea to, you know, provide some evidence.

 

Ideally I think there should be prosecutions for torture of former Admin. officials but realistically I don't think that will happen and I don't think now is the time to have prosecutions. Any prosecution coming out now would be seen by many as a witch hunt of the former Admin. I think that will be too much of a distraction in the face of the other serious crises at the moment and also one that will make the Republicans, and possibly some Democrats, in Congress more reluctant to cooperate on other issues.

Personally I would like to see at some time someithing like a Truth and Reconcilliation committee regarding what was done in the name of fighting terrorism. Possibly something along the lines of Congressional hearings with immunity.

 

I think Hayden pointed out several instances where they were getting no where with someone until they started using torture, then came across with some usefull information including the dirty bomb plot.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/17/bush-officials-warn-release-legal-memos-interrogation

Hopefully the link works.

 

I'd love to see some prosecutions, but I always knew it would never happen.

Honestly, I don't think a democracy can handle such a process. After the death of Stalin, the USSR went through a period of denouncing and reversing Stalinist policies. They could do that because it was a small group of people running the country. Here, you have almost half the country that would feel like reproaching Bush for torture is a reproach against them as well because they bought into it. The cognitive dissonance would force people to blame the reproach on politics instead of justice. The whole issue would polarize and those who sensed an injury would want retribution later, and would think it was justified too since "it's all politics."

 

I would prosecute the following for starters:

George Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld
Condoleeza Rice
Alberto Gonzales
John Yoo
Paul Wolfowitz
Doug Feith

 

Don't forget Hadley and Addington.

 

after reading the memos, lets not forget bybee.

[rquoter]The Bybee memo asserts that stress positions, in which the detainee is forced to maintain an uncomfortable position for a long period of time, "may cause muscle fatigue" but that "any pain associated with muscle fatigue is not of the intensity sufficient to amount to severe pain and suffering." Detainees told the ICRC they were shackled in "stress positions" with their arms above their heads for two or three days continuously, and two or three months intermittently, and were allegedly kept naked during that time. In one case, a detainee's prosthetic leg was removed to make standing more difficult.

Detainees said that their legs and ankles swelled as a result of their arms being shackled in the stress position and that they were forced to defecate on themselves. Occasionally, detainees said, they were allowed to sit on a bucket to use the bathroom but were not allowed to clean themselves afterward. Only one of the detainees who experienced this agreed to have his name published. The ICRC reports that detainees were checked regularly by medical personnel while undergoing this procedure. [/rquoter]
source

also its amusing that we could compile a list where wolfowitz maybe the most decent person.

 

It’s not really important to me.

 

GENEVA CONVENTION!

For the win!!!!!

 

I will leave it at this . .. . . .
Aren't we still hunting down the prison guards from Nazi Concentration camps?
Even the ones that didn't kill/maim/torture anyone? All of them were seen as complicit . . . .

Am I correct in this?

Rocket River

 

It would be sad to see CIA officials prosecuted for what they were told to do. It's not like we lost a war and need to give these people up.

Protect our own and try to provide more responsible leadership.

 

Waterboarding is not even on the same level as this.

 

An excellent post, JV. I'd love to see some prosecutions as well, and think they are richly deserved, but I believe the reaction would be as you've described and a political nightmare for the Democrats in coming elections, especially the re-election of President Obama. Having said that, I would still like to see it happen. I just think it should wait until after his re-election.

 

marginization of the holocaust FTW!

 

I think Obama is putting ideology ahead of common sense here. Theres a lot i agree with the man and think he will be a very good president...

But making this info public is a mistake. And banning these methods is a mistake. I like that he won't prosecute but c'mon, why ban something that gets us precious info.

Ok, I know that some will claim the info you get isn't reliable..but it's better than nothing. As long as the damage done isn't physically permanent, i think the CIA and FBI should be given more lattitude here.

 

I gonna bet that these mechanisms will still take place under the Obama administration at some point and he is going to be the person who authorizes them. There is going to be some situation where the US has someone who knows something and not getting that knowledge is going to cost American lives.

While there has been a lot of talk regarding "change" I don't believe much actually has changed between the two administrations regarding interrogation, wiretapping, etc....

 

Because there is no evidence that it gets us precious info, for one, as documented many times in these threads. The KSM/Fox story has been proven to be false. He actually provided data of negative utility once the "harsher methods" were used. And that is what the army had found over scores of years and why their field manual says the techniques are useless.

For another, there's the entire moral high ground which our nation should embrace as leaders of others. We are quite simply better than using those methods.

I for one am glad the Obama administration will not prosecute, primarily for the reasons outlined by JV.