Discussion for article #225766
Funny, I have clear recollection of more than a few prominent folks being quite pleased with this. Mostly higher ups in the Executive and GOP organizations. And not ancient history either, that seemed to be a point of pride on Darth Cheney’s book tour last month.
Although this picture accompanies every TPM article about the CIA, I just realized that its original caption must have been “Cleaning up the CIA’s Image”.
I can hardly wait to hear what Mr. Cheney’s response to this will be.
Hey Speaker Orange and Chairman Grand Theft Auto - when can we expect hearings on torture during the BUSH admin and when will you recommend charges to be filed against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld
Will the Justice Department revisit its decision not to prosecute anyone?
That’s an interesting question.
It’s one thing to offer up some Truth, but some Reconciliation may be in order, too. And that might mean bringing charges, and - if a trial is avoided in some cases - not following Holder’s “collateral consequence” pattern of slap-on-wrist pleas and economic penalties that don’t hurt the actors who committed the crimes.
John Yoo says he served honorably and well, and that his time at OLC providing a legal fig leaf to torture people was public service well spent. Fair enough, he thinks he’s good people. But in authorizing “enhanced techniques” or whatever other forms of rhetorical sophistry he employed, Yoo was saying that, despite any personal reservations someone may feel, the United States was within its rights to torture. A speculative “ends justify means.”
The United States is a nation of laws. If torturing someone is an egg broken in service of an omelette, so too is prosecuting John Yoo. I’m sure he’ll understand that, as a final act of service to his country, he and other people who have retired, moved on, and mentally blocked out the consequences of their actions may need to be plucked from the amber of their new lives and made to account for the actions of their old in a court of law. If he and others are sentenced to receive 1% of the time they ordered people indiscriminately incarcerated at 1% of the cruelty inflicted on those prisoners, at least it will be an acknowledgement and penance (and done in the lifetimes of the people responsible, unlike with Japanese internment camps).
A nation of laws doesn’t treat someone like a Made Man because he’s a law professor with a handsome rolodex. We don’t live by omerta, we live by the U.S. Constitution – which lists Treaties as among the “Supreme law[s] of the land” in Article 6 Clause 2:
…all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
And Colin Powell’s reputation takes another hit, thanks to the Bush/Cheney administration.