NY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

[eShirl]

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
DEC. 21, 2014

-snip-

No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation.

The American Civil Liberties Union is to give Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. a letter Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears increasingly to be “a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes.”

The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.

But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.

-snip-

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?ref=opinion

[Scuba]

1. In case you haven't seen it, here's the White House petition to prosecute the torturers

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/prosecute-full-extent-law-all-parties-responsible-use-torture-outlined-cia-report/17ZgKTtB

[valerief]

6. thanks

[Hubert Flottz]

2. K&R

No Torture and Murder in my name, or in the name of my grandchildren. Criminals must pay the price for their crimes.

[Dustlawyer]

3. Another example of the corruption of our elected officials. It comes from the same place as not

prosecuting the greedy, crooked Wall Street bankers who wrecked our economy and created another Gilded Age! The laws only apply to their benefit, not detriment.
We know out politicians are bought off, the polls show 60+ percent believe this. Here at DU it's probably 95%. Because we know what is going on with the corporations and the Plutocrats, IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT AS CITIZENS! We passively allow them to get away with torture in our names. Look at what WE did, look at it! If we let this go we are complicit. They cannot continue to break the law with impunity while we stand by.
This is much bigger than just torture as I alluded to above. It is voting restrictions and gutting the budget of the EPA so that the corporate polluters can break the law and not get caught. Mitch McChinless even said as much on the floor of the Senate. It is shipping our jobs off in one-sided trade deals that benefit the few wealthy DONORS at our expense. It is lying us into a war they planned six months before 9/11! It is making our public education worthless and college out of reach so we become a nation of desperate serfs licking the boots of the few powerful families! It is continued tax breaks for them and cuts for us!

We know better than most what is going on. Most of us know that both political parties are owned by the same group. We have the power to change this and make it right. Freedom is about REAL choices, not a choice between Right and far Right, which are the choices they give us. We are not free, they have been taking away our rights, like the right to peaceably assemble, address wrongs in a system of real Justice, not one where the courts are rigged (I know this first hand)! It is time to stop bitching here and organize and make our own change. How bad will it have to get before you do something?

[Ineeda]

5. I agree with everything you say but...

exactly what does "do something" mean? For me, that's the problem. We vote or at least try to, and GOTV as well as we can. Do those votes actually count? We march and protest (well, to be honest, I don't any more, being old and disabled. I did back in the 70's though. You're welcome) and we risk getting jailed, beat up, and/or ignored. We call our legislators, write letters, sign petitions, and boycott, and try like hell to change things with little or no success. The uncooperative media is also complicit, as we all know. Is anarchy the answer? So, will the younger generation be willing to let their blood run in the streets? I doubt it.

Sincerely -- I'm feeling sad and defeated. Got any real suggestions?

[Thespian2]

12. Excellent comment

I am another old man who feels the same as you. I wish I had an answer, but after all the years of being beaten down, threatened, stolen from...What do we do to get the government back to the 99%?

[Dustlawyer]

17. I don't have a magic bullet, at least I am pretty sure that I don't, but my main idea is to try to

recruit as many of the organizations that exist right now who are fighting a symptom of the corruption. By this I will use the example of the teachers and parents fighting for better education, less testing, and against vouchers and Charter schools. I personally doubt they can be successful overall because there is so much tax money these companies can make if they can control the school boards and the state governments (private prisons are another similar group in the same boat for the same reasons). The Lobbyists just run over them and buy these elections.
These groups would be better off joining with other groups fighting for the environment, equal pay and women's issues, medical marijuana, ... All groups fighting against well funded Lobbyistscould be joined together to fight the root of the problem, the ability for corporations and the 1% to buy our politicians and Judges with campaign money. We demand publicly Funded Elections (PFE's) and support Senator Bernie Sanders as he is the only politicians who has come out publicly in support of PFE's.
It's still a long shot, but we need to try. If more Progressive would put skin in the game we can do it. They did it in the Gilded Age and it can be done again. I am not naive enough to think that things are the same, because they aren't. They didn't have the huge propaganda machine that we do now, but we have the Internet to use to link together. The first thing is to spread the word and get these other groups to join together. That's all I got, but I cannot sit by and watch everything go down the toilet. Both Parties are bought off, that's what many of the people here do not understand, or they think the have to vote for the lesser of two evils or the Republican Bogeyman will get us. The problem is, the Plutocrats win either way and things just get worse.

[90-percent]

14. Excellent post!

That's the rub, the majority of American's realize a good many of our society's institutions are utterly corrupt and broken. And a broken system sure as hell isn't going to repair itself.

I think the answer lies in a cohesive popular movement of grassroots organizing and pulling in the same direction to reverse the trending total corruption.

There seems to be some movement in that direction with all the protests about police brutality an creeping authoritarianism.

I had hopes for the Occupy movement, as I think it really caught the attention of the Oligarchs, who were quick to get police to put down the demonstrations.

But frankly I fear participating in public demonstrations because of the excessive use of force by police on peaceful demonstrators these days. And the planted agent provocateurs. My hearing is deteriorating with age, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life even more deaf from police sound cannons.

So, what's an average citizen that wants to restore America to it's former level playing field representative Democracy to do?

-90% Jimmy

[Hotler]

4. Bravo, Bravo......

[Enthusiast]

7. K&R! Excellent comments after the article too.

[Gothmog]

8. Cheney needs to go to jail

[bsmarty]

9. Have you seen the latest polls concerning torture?

Unless Americans change their attitudes towards torture no one will be held accountable.

[eggplant]

10. You mean the push polls where over half te country *still* think torture is wrong?

Those polls?

Oh, and welcome to DU!

[Ineeda]

15. Here's Vern Buchanan's (R-FL) push poll

that I received last week. (Sorry, couldn't copy/paste the masthead, only the text.) The results indicated more than 70% 'yes'.

Do you think it's appropriate for the CIA to use enhanced interrogation on foreign terrorists if American lives are at stake?

Yes

No

Undecided

[HomerRamone]

11. The polls are dishonest

"By a 51- 29 margin, Americans say that the CIA’s interrogation methods are justified, according to Pew Research Center. The poll has come under criticism for not defining what those methods were, failing to mention that they violate the law and avoiding the word 'torture.'” http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/16/torture_citibank/

[Overseas]

13. K&R. Yes please!

[elleng]

16. The substance is a good thing,

but has anyone noticed the negative attitude about President Obama that seems to pervade it?

FIRST SENTENCE: 'Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects...

'He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not...

The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.'

Pisses me off.