Text 13742, 118 rader
Skriven 2010-06-05 13:11:20 av Ross Sauer (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 13740 av Earl Croasmun (1:124/311)
Ärende: Bush, torture, and stupidity.
=====================================
"Earl Croasmun -> Johnjwilson" <1:124/311> wrote in
news:30885$POL_INC@JamNNTPd:

 ~>> So he says to the world he approved of torture and would do it
 EC> again...

 EC> No, he didn't.

Perhaps the only thing worse than a war criminal is an unrepentant one.
And so it with Barack Obama's predecessor. Just months after former Vice
President Dick Cheney boasted, "I was a big supporter of
waterboarding," George W. Bush joined him by announcing, "I'd do it
again."

President Bush's endorsement of the use of waterboarding and other
enhanced interrogation techniques against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed and other terrorism suspects came during an appearance before a
business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As CNN reported:

"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," the former president
said during an appearance at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids,
Michigan, according to the Grand Rapids Press.

"I'd do it again to save lives," he added.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Back in February, Dick Cheney
bragged to ABC's Jonathan Karl is almost the exact same terms:

"I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the
enhanced interrogation techniques..."

And in that same interview, Cheney confirmed that the both Bush legal
team that invented the spurious rationale for detainee torture and those
implementing it were merely following orders:

"The reason I've been outspoken is because there were some things being
said, especially after we left office, about prosecuting CIA personnel
that had carried out our counterterrorism policy or disbarring lawyers
in the Justice Department who had -- had helped us put those policies
together, and I was deeply offended by that, and I thought it was
important that some senior person in the administration stand up and
defend those people who'd done what we asked them to do."

There are only two problems with the Bush-Cheney tag team defense of
waterboarding.

The first, of course, is that it didn't save lives. As ThinkProgress
noted:

Waterboarding Mohammed 183 times didn't save any lives. In fact,
Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to
the CIA after withstanding torture. Additionally, a former Special
Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq has stated that waterboarding
has actually cost American lives: "The number of U.S. soldiers who have
died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but
it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept.
11, 2001."

Just as important, with their admissions Bush and Cheney are in essence
confessing to war crimes which the Obama administration is both morally
and legally obligated to prosecute. As Scott Horton concluded in
Harper's regarding Cheney's game of chicken:

"What prosecutor can look away when a perpetrator mocks the law itself
and revels in his role in violating it? Such cases cry out for
prosecution. Dick Cheney wants to be prosecuted. And prosecutors should
give him what he wants."

Writing on February 15th, Professor Jonathan Turley lamented that
President Obama had turned his back on the law:

It is an astonishing public admission since waterboarding is not just
illegal but a war crime. It is akin to the vice president saying that he
supported bank robbery or murder-for-hire as a public policy.

The ability of Cheney to openly brag about his taste for torture is the
direct result of President Barack Obama blocking any investigation or
prosecution of war crimes. For political reasons, Obama and Attorney
General Eric Holder have refused to carry out our clear obligations
under international law to prosecute for such waterboarding. Indeed,
before taking office, various high-ranking officials stated that both
Obama and Holder assured them that they would not allow such
prosecutions. While they denied it at the time, those accounts are
consistent with their actions following inauguration.

Sadly, Turley has it exactly right. During his confirmation hearings,
Attorney General Eric Holder unequivocally declared, "waterboarding is
torture." But Holder also reassured Republicans that "we don't want to
criminalize policy differences that might exist" with the outgoing Bush
White House. And even after releasing the Bush torture team legal memos,
President Obama agreed with Holder's restatement of the classic GOP
"criminalization of politics" defense:

"In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who
carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from
the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to
prosecution...

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong
views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark
and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges
and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and
energy laying blame for the past."

Nothing, that is, but the preservation of the rule of law.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

UPDATE: On his web site, Jonathan Turley today reacted to Bush's
pronouncement by lamenting that "Because it would have been politically
unpopular to prosecute people for torture, the Obama Administration has
allowed officials to downgrade torture from a war crime to a talking
point."

http://tinyurl.com/36688pw

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