Thom Hartmann: The Only Person Jailed for Torture is the One Who Exposed It

[thomhartmann]

We all know the Bush Administration committed war crimes when it tortured terrorist suspects. But, the only person going to jail for these crimes is the guy who blew the whistle on all of it. On Tuesday, former CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou plead guilty to revealing the identity of a CIA agent when he turned over classified secrets to the New York Times exposing the Bush administration’s torture program back in 2007. Kiriakou told the story of Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah who was captured and waterboarded more than 80 times. Kiriakou was originally charged under the Espionage Act, to which he pled not guilty. Now - Tuesday’s decision to plead guilty to a lesser charge allows Kiriakou to get out of prison within two and a half years.

Whistleblower advocate Jesselyn Raddack with the Government Accountability Project said of Tuesday’s events: "The only person to be criminal prosecuted, and now likely jailed, as a result of the Bush-era torture regime is John Kiriakou, who refused to participate in torture, helped expose the program, and said on national television that torture was wrong." You might remember - President Obama said this in 2009 about how it’s time for the nation to look forward and not prosecute the crimes of the past. Unfortunately, that same standard isn’t applied to whistleblowers. And until we DO actually hold Bush and his team accountable for war crimes, this gaping moral wound in America won’t heal.

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