President Obama strikes a wise balance in coming to terms with the torture of terrorism suspects.

[JimGinPA]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/04/16/ST2009041603954.html

THE OBAMA administration acted courageously and wisely yesterday with its dual actions on interrogation policy. The pair of decisions -- one essentially forgiving government agents who may have committed heinous acts they were told were legal, the other signaling that such acts must never again be condoned by the United States -- struck exactly the right balance.

~snip~

By repudiating the memos, the Obama administration has again seized the high ground and restored some of the honor lost over the past few years. President Obama's actions not only restore confidence that this country will not torture, but he has also strengthened the nation's moral authority in condemning these heinous acts wherever they occur.

Yet the decision to forgo prosecutions should not prevent -- and perhaps should even encourage -- further investigation about the circumstances that gave rise to torture. What has become clear as more of the so-called torture memos are released is that common sense and established legal doctrine were often contorted to justify abhorrent techniques. An OLC memo dated May 30, 2005, and released yesterday reveals that at that time, the CIA had custody of 94 detainees and had used a variety of enhanced interrogation techniques against 28. All the techniques were deemed legal as long as they did not inflict prolonged or severe physical or mental pain. More light needs to be shed on how decisions were made and why. And more information is needed on who in the Bush administration made the ultimate decision to authorize the use of techniques that have long been considered torture and a violation of domestic and international legal strictures. A commission like the one that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks would likely provide the best vehicle for such an exploration.

I agree that this needs to be investigated further but I don't think a "commission" is the route to take. The ALCU is asking for a Special Prosecutor and that may be the answer.

[pnorman]

1. I'll trust Obama to do the right thing on this, but I really LIKE that 2012 banner!.

Is it available commercially?

pnorman

[JimGinPA]

2. I Don't Know...

I lifted it from somewhere. Right click it & save it if you want.

[pnorman]

4. I've already done so, and have printed out a copy.

I make refrigerator magnets of such things. (My refrigerator is almost covered with them!)

But if it's not yet commercially available, it almost certainly will soon be!

pnorman

[Phx_Dem]

3. That's precisely what John Dean explained to Keith, but he was

having none of it because he'd already written his Special Rant.

[Cha]

8. Interesting..

thanks for that, PhxDem.

[redqueen]

13. I enjoyed Keith's rant because from what I'd read here yesterday...

it seemed that Obama was saying that *nobody* would be prosecuted.

That seemed to me to be Keith's interpretation as well... not sure.

[Political Heretic]

17. "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

These are the statements, made by the President that cause people to believe no one will be prosecuted.

[redqueen]

19. Yes...

it's making me think he does this on purpose.

Say things that will enrage the left and get them to rise up and 'force' him to do what he would like to have done all along. Thereby keeping his political hands 'clean' and getting the public to do its duty and get involved.

[Political Heretic]

20. That sounds like far-fetched wishful thinking to me, but hell I certainly hope you're right!

That would be :party:

[redqueen]

21. Yeah, I agree...

which is why I'm loath to say it... :rofl:

But I can't help but think it! It's by far most likely just my wishful thinking... but first single payer and then weed and now this... I think I'm forgetting some others too. It's almost like he's a toreador, triggering us to charge this way and that. :P

[GeorgeGist]

5. History rejected the Nuremburg defense ...

as nonsense.

[JimGinPA]

10. Strawman...

Nazis claiming they were just following orders that they knew to be unlawful is somewhat different from CIA agents folowing direction from DOJ memoranda.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jefferson_dem]

6. Wow. Reason, proportion, perspective.

Thanks.

:kick:

[Colobo]

7. Good call, President Obama.

[amborin]

9. great post, sorry i didn't see it earlier

[Cali_Democrat]

11. K&R

nt

[moodforaday]

12. So the wife beater has promised to stop.

from: Salon Radio: Binyam Mohamed lawyer Clive Stafford Smith - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Consider this. I spent most of my career representing people in death penalty cases, in criminal cases. You know, if one of my clients is, say, a wife beater, and says, "Look, I beat my wife with all the best of intentions, I just wanted to make her better. Let's look forward rather than backwards and let's ignore the fact that I beat her for the last ten years," you'd laugh at me and you'd be quite right to do that.

The idea that Binyam Mohamed, who is the victim of torture, should be told that we should look forward not backwards and he should ignore the fact that he had a razor blade taken to his genitals, for goodness' sake, by people at the behest of the American state, is just shocking to me.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/04/07/smith/index1.html

During the past eight years, whenever a new Bush scandal erupted, or when an old scandal finally made it from blogs to the MSM, or when new details emerged about one of Bush's interminable list of outrages, the GOP and the media had one disdainful response: It's an old story. Torture was an "old story" at one time, too, as I hope most DU-ers recall.

Today the response is to "look forward", but the intent and the result are precisely the same.

[JimGinPA]

14. As It's Been Pointed Out Here Numerous Times...

As Russ Feingold said,

"The president has stated that it is not his administration's intention to prosecute those who acted reasonably and relied in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice. As I understand it, his decision does not mean that anyone who engaged in activities that the Department had not approved, those who gave improper legal advice or those who authorized the program could not be prosecuted. The details made public in these memos paint a horrifying picture and reveal how the Bush administration's lawyers and top officials were complicit in torture. The so-called enhanced interrogation program was a violation of our core principles as a nation and those responsible should be held accountable."

[Political Heretic]

16. What concerns me is the continued rheotric about not looking backward, not that CIA agencts won't be

prosecuted.

In my opinion, statements like "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past" sound like the President lacks the will to prosecute those how betrayed their oaths to the highest offices in the land. And I for one cannot think of any crimes more critical to be prosecuted than those.

I don't believe we really "move forward" as a nation without accounting for the ways in which both the letter of our laws and of our constitution was shredded by the previous administration.

[polichick]

18. A Special Prosecutor is a good idea - at the very least, those whose...

...legal (political) opinions made torture possible could end up losing their law licenses ~ which would unseat Judge Bybee.

But, ultimately, looking into this further will probably lead right to the top.