Torture prosecutions distracting, but necessary (Lindstrom / Concord Monitor)

[struggle4progress]

By Paul Lindstrom For the Monitor
May 10, 2009 - 12:00 am

... Obama is right that prosecutions will be a distraction. They will divert our energies and enthusiasm away from important tasks facing our government and our society. Indictments and trials will become fodder for disparate political agendas. We could end up collectively mired in the past while we should be actively seeking solutions to major economic and geopolitical problems, and we could lose whatever optimism for the future that President Obama has managed to engender in us.

But distracting as they may be, the prosecutions are necessary.

When laws are broken, it is especially important to prosecute the lawbreakers when they are the people we have chosen to govern us ...

Prosecuting government officials who break the law teaches us not only that the government is not above the law but that it is serious when it tells us that we, too, must obey the law ...

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090510/OPINION/905100305