"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department."

I vas only followink orders.

If we do not prosecute the decision makers, we are inviting a repeat performance by the next Right Wing Administration.....and there will be one someday.

Hopefully, I will be long dead by then.

I actually had the opposite reaction -- I fully expected him to grant immunity to those who were "just following orders," but I was surprised that he did not say anything about protecting the people who issued the orders.

Cheney, Yoo et al. can't breathe easy quite yet, it seems to me.

while I admire your optimism, Steve, in parsing Obama's statement, I think it pretty clear that absolutely no one is going to be prosecuted for acts committed as part of the Bush Administration.

which is one of the few things I disliked about Obama all along - his pretty evident willingness to start 1/20/09 with a clean slate. That lets the Bushies get away with, quite literally, murder. it just seems woefully inconsistent to me for Obama to emphasize that "we are a nation of laws" while announcing that the laws wont be enforced and violators will not be accountable to those laws. what is really disappointing is that Obama knows better than that - he is simply doing what is politically expedient.

How about, then, pursuing criminal charges against those who did the sanctioning?

This is key. What the torturers did is abominable, however, there's no question but that they never would have done this without the orders coming down. George Tenet was very concerned -- even paranoid -- about the possibility that CIA folks would be hung out to dry over this kind of stuff, and he went to great lengths to ensure that orders relating to coercive interrogations were explicitly spelled out. I understand the moral bankruptcy of the "I was just following orders" defense, but going after the little fish would do more harm than good. It would almost certainly turn the steady stream of operatives leaving the Agency into a full on exodus, compromising further our already weakened ability to gather intelligence, while leaving the real villains to continue peddling the same disgusting arguments that began the entire mess.

It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect the Fatherland for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Nazi Party.

If the Obama administration is NOT going to investigate and prosecute crimes, what the fuck does that say about our country?

If the Obama administration is NOT going to investigate and prosecute crimes, what the fuck does that say for what will reoccur in the future?

If the Obama administration is NOT going to investigate and prosecute crimes, does this mean that "it is not a crime if the president does it"?

If the Obama administration is NOT going to investigate and prosecute crimes, how the hell is the United States to have any moral leadership in the world?

If the Obama administration is NOT going to investigate and prosecute crimes, Obama is just a DLC/Rethug-Lite like Clinton and can go FUCK HIMSELF!

April 16, 2009

Day 1 of the self announced failure of the Obama administration to upholding our Constitution and laws.

I would have to agree there's not much point in prosecuting CIA torturers. Offer them early retirement or something, but I don't think you would ever get convictions.

The same does not necessarily hold for the Bushies, though.

What did you liberals vote for again? Was it change?

Is that the change YOU voted for?

What a pathetic way to find out nothing matters so long as the people in power have the ability to protect their own.

Enjoy the next three-point-seventy-five years. You're going to find that the only thing that changes are the oft-stated positions of those who run from the truth.

I believe the President's effort to expose the previous Admin's errors in a reflective rather than retributive light does more to punish them than would a highly-partisan (and bitterly vengeful) investigation.

Others may disagree, but I believe history will be far harder on the Bushies if it isn't dilluted by liberal vindictiveness.

Norman, I suggest you enjoy the next seven-point-seventy-five years.

Are we torturing any longer? No? That's a change.

I think Obama is telling Congress, "If you want to go after them, form a congressional committee." I think he's right. I certainly see the benefit in ensuring that no future administrations seriously consider extralegal means to solve problems, but Obama has too much going on right now to get bogged down in all of this.

And bogged down he would be. Can you imagine the MSM, not even including talk radio and Faux News, if the Obama DOJ filed charges against Bushies?

if i had known when i was 11 that with hard work i too could get in on the ground floor of writing laws to legalize any criminal activity i might like to engage in, i would have worked harder in school.

"The United States is a nation of laws."
Exactly right, Mr. President. And, as Glenn Greeenwald and others have pointed out, those laws include statutes and treaty obligatons to investigate, prosecute, and punish those who contravene international norms of humane behavior, including committing torture and murder.

Jesus, some of you people sound like my kid who yells at me when his slice of chocolate cake isn't big enough. You got cake, kid, and it's good cake too, so enjoy it. The memos are published, they aren't highly redacted at all, and there's nothing to indicate that those who ordered the torture (e.g., Cheney, Yoo) may escape prosecution.

i'm trying to wrap my head around the concept that following illegal orders is okay simply because those illegal orders have the seal of approval of a government lawyer.

this is definitely not the government i voted for in november 2008.

Hmm... lemme see.

This is the same Justice Dept that is trying to deport a bloke who apparently slogged around the fence of a concentration camp for a few months... 70 years ago?

Others may disagree, but I believe history will be far harder on the Bushies if it isn't dilluted by liberal vindictiveness.

So much for the rule of law and all that.

Wasn't that the lecture position of a million screaming liberals this time a year ago? Turns out old George W Bush wasn't so bad after all. What's the difference between them? They seem to want to defend the America in pretty much the exact same way and ensure that no one goes to prison for following lawfully given orders.

I guess consistency doesn't matter.

"..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".

RIP, Department of "Justice".

"If it feels good, do it".

"How about, then, pursuing criminal charges against those who did the sanctioning?"

It is significant that the statement excludes mentioning them even as it specifically absolves those who followed their direction. Obama is a lawyer.

Not torturing anymore?

You're relying on "trust" to ensure that we are no longer torturing?

How about a thing called "oversight?"

A Democratic Congress is going to perform oversight on a Democratic executive branch that won't even prosecute the people who carried out the orders to torture?

I think "trust" stretches incredulity here. Correct me if I'm wrong, and you smarty pants people certainly will, but when did the United States become a nation of "trust" and abandon a thing called the rule of law?

I'll enjoy the coming years. Many of you will see your own heads explode trying to defend the Obama. He's an excellent Republican, sir. An excellent Republican.

Choco Thunder: I sort of agree, but a comment like "Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer" seems completely gratuitous. Torture has yet to be proven to work in extracting usable intelligence, but it's done a lot for making new enemies and making the U.S. less safe.

As Obama said in a different context, "To understand how we get there, we first need to understand how we got here." If we want to regain a fraction of our moral standing in the world, we can't whitewash the legacy of torture or invoke state secrets as a dodge.

I'm done. Go back to your snarking and your nitpicking. Enjoy your echo chamber.

Following orders is an unacceptable justification for crimes against humanity. I'm afraid zeitgeist, as he is wont to do, nailed it. No one will ever be called to account for these horrible crimes.

Pursuing the Bush Administration is Congress' job. Let them have at it.

Obama needs to staff his Justice Dept. He just removed an obstacle to that goal.

It's a good idea to keep a view of the ENTIRE chess board.

As CT notes, it's Congress' to oversee the executive branch and they SHOULD exercise it. Checks and Balances. It's good to see the restoration.

Not only would I not want to be one of the lawyers who wrote these memos, I would not want to be one of the people who provided information to them. In the Bybee memo of Aug 2002, for example, Bybee states that he is relying on the fact that Zubaidah knows important information, that there is chatter level equal to before 9/11 and that Zubaidah is the no. 3 or 4 guy in Al Qaeda.

It's an 18 page memo with a lot of detail on what they thought about Zubaidah's mental health, testing they had done on certain techniques, the experience of the guy who was going to perform the torture (his name is redacted), etc.

**Others may disagree, but I believe history will be far harder on the Bushies if it isn't dilluted by liberal vindictiveness.**

*So much for the rule of law and all that.* - Norman R.

No argument from me. The Bushies were bad actors, and it's within the Obama Admin's right to go after them. I just think such an effort would further divide our already-broken nation.

I voted for change - to our destructive partisanship.

Here is an excerpt from one the memos on placing an insect inside Zubaydah "interrogation box".

[i][/"As we understand it, no actually harmful insect will be placed in the box. Thus, though the introduction of an insect may produce trepidation in Zubaydah (which we discuss below), it certainly does not cause physical pain."

But, the memo cautioned, to comply with the law, the CIA "must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain."i]

An entomology lesson from lizard brains. Man I hate these sonsabeatches. Quote from Rawstory.

i see norm's out of jail again.

your pal,
blake

But, the memo cautioned, to comply with the law, the CIA "must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain."i]

But when talking about waterboarding, Bybee concedes that the prisoner may well think he is going to die. No problem there, however.

It's extremely disappointing...enraging, even...but sadly, not very surprising. I never thought the little guys would get it for what they did. But I did hope some of the big ones would.

Enjoy your echo chamber.

There's quite a bit of varying viewpoint in this thread, if you read it.

We ripped his tongue out, cut his fingers off one at a time and broke his hips which finally killed him. But we were sanctioned to do it by higher ups so it was ok. Not my fault. They told us to dissect this man alive so we were only doing our duty. When the government tells you to commit unlawful inhumane acts by telling you we made it legal to do so it begs the question...what kind of a human are you. Saying it's your job still doesn't make it right.

These sadistic bastards were spreading terror and revenge and if prosecuted would ensure in the future people think twice before following such orders.

There is no justifying these acts. If you didn't know any better then you have no business having your job or being in that position.

Check out the Bradbury memo.

It basically says: sure, we've condemned other countries for using these techniques. We've called this stuff torture when other nations do it. But that's no reason for us not to go ahead and do it ourselves.

U!S!A!

As far as I can see Obama is not saying he won't go after the people at the top who authorized torture. Prosecuting the CIA people won't do the country any good, but Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, and Rumsfeld had better watch out.

Members of the military and police could not get away with following such orders. It is not deemed unjusty retributive or divisive to investigate or even convict them.

BS!

"This is a nation of laws."

Why not investigate, convict if warranted, and then commute the sentence then?

Is there anyone here who seriously thinks President Hillary Clinton wouldn't have done exactly as Obama's doing now?

It's Congress' job to prosecute torture. Obama's got an economic clusterfuck to deal with. He gets involved in torture prosecutions, the polarization of this nation intensifies, culminating in Sarah Palin taking the oath of office in 2013.

No. Thank. You.

Okay, so they won't be prosecuted. How about firing them?

Exactly - "How about firing them?" What will the future be if you leave in place people who got away with torture?

Up here in Canada, we had a problem with members of a regiment beating a Somali teenager to death. Well, the regiment, an old and distinguished one, was disbanded. The men who did this were tried, although the commanders got off more lightly than most people would have preferred. My point? Well, disbanding a regiment in disgrace, having their regalia become tainted, really bugged the military. The got it. They were a disgrace for all time. Gone. No honor, no glory, just the permanent stain of a dishonourable act. I'm not usually in favour of collective punishment, but all the personnel in Somalia knew what was going on and did nothing, so they all deserved a slice of the blame.

WTF? John Demjanuk was being deported today, when a judge made them stop, due to his age (89) and his frail condition. Who is he and what was his crime? He is a Cleveland area man who has been fighting for 30 years against charges that he was a concentration camp guard partially responsible for the deaths of thousands of. He'd been found guilty in Israel in 1988 and sentenced to death, but the Israeli Supreme Court overturned that decision in 1993. He had earlier lost his U.S. citizenship, due to alleged fraud in applying for citizenship. Demjanuk has maintained the entire time that he was working on a farm and never was a guard in a concentration camp. The Israeli court, in overturning, concluded that there was reasonable doubt that he was the guard "Ivan the Terrible."

NOW ---- keep that in mind, in light of Holder's statements today, and Obama's position on all of this torture issue. We can completely ascertain whether each individual was present at torturing Iraqis, Afghans and others. Many of the Germans who were executed after the Nuremburg trials had their own good record keeping to blame for the evidence against them. Our own records have somewhat been compromised, because the CIA destroyed so many tapes. But other records do exist - maybe even copies of those very same tapes.

WHO IN OUR GOVERNMENT WILL EVER FOLLOW THE LAW, PEOPLE?

If GERMAN soldiers were told to torture and kill, they were murdering swine, who deserved to be executed. And they were.

If American individuals tortured and killed, while working for the government, they were (Holder's words), "...dedicated men and women working to protect America," just performing "conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department."

There is now no doubt that people were tortured. There only remains putting the entire record together and then indicting those who were THERE - and if convicted, sentenced. Remember, the Israeli court 20 years ago passed judgment and released Demjanuk, saying that he MAY not have even BEEN there. THEY DOUBTED HE WAS. Yet it is our government TODAY, saying that our present-day people - who WERE there, "just following orders" (a 100% rejected defense at Nuremburg), are innocent FOR THAT VERY REASON.

We can put them THERE. We can show THEY DID IT, and Holder is going to DEFEND THEM, claiming that they are innocent, because "they were just following orders."

There will be no DOUBT that these people did it. There will be no doubt that over 100 (yes, people, over 100 - look it up from the news items of the times) died at the hands of these American BUTCHERS.

What we know about the numbers now is only the tip of the iceberg. Evidently Holder knows this. I believe that Holder and Obama realize how many "American boys" are at risk of being executed, and they can't deal with it.

The exceptionalism smell is odious.

The double standard is noxious.

Holder - if he maintains this position - becomes a criminal himself - JUST LIKE YOO AND GONZALES. The Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Charter - and the U.S. Constitution - REQUIRE the U.S. government to prosecute this, as part of the supreme law of our land, since these are treaties approved by the U.S. Senate. Holder has no choice. If he does not prosecute, he is also violating his oath of office, and he should be impeached.

OBAMA is part and parcel of this criminality. HE also should be impeached, if they follow through on this.

Will they be impeached? Will the criminals EVER be indicted and made to answer for their crimes?

ANSWER: THEY WON'T. Not the line personnel, and not the John Yoo's of the world.

What a complete piece of shit Obama has become.

People are abandoning him in droves. ANGRILY. See the tip of the iceberg in the comments at http://rawstory.com/news/2008/AP_Obama_admin_informed_CIA_officials_0416.html

Obama is no longer MY President. He'd given enough signs, and I was giving him room to prove himself or hang himself. But now he has crossed the line. Fuck him.

This is a dark, DARK, DARK day in our history. (Ironically, I typo-ed "shitory" --- Freud must be up there laughing at me...)

Obama has just lost any support I would ever give him again. EVER.

Piss on Obama. Piss on Holder.

The sane and civilized people in Germany in 1935 must have been appalled at what was going on there.

We can be comparably dismayed and retching at what this day hath wrought.

They had America to go to, if they didn't like it. What do we have as a shining beacon on a hill? It isn't Spain. Spain's AG today refused to prosecute Yoo et al.

...The world in the 1930s got crazier by the month. I always wondered what that world must have been like, as events moved toward war, toward absolute insanity. Was it like this - one step at a time, into the cuckoo's nest?

Will we be able to ever pull back from the sociopathic end result that happened before? If not, how many will die this time that is approaching?

Remember, that it wasn't the war that started the torture and genocide. Those started long before the war. Heydrich did not all of a sudden wake up on September 1, 1939 and decide to round up and kill Jews, gays, the insane and the infirm.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

This just doesn't look like the terrible insanity will be stopped. We had hope, but hope died on April 16th, 2009 - four days before Hitler's 120th birthday.

Move over, Adolph, the Dems are going to join the GOP and the Nazis.

.

CT:

Pursuing the Bush Administration is Congress' job. Let them have at it.

A CIVICS REMINDER: Congress does not indict, nor does it prosecute - except in the case of impeachment. All the rest of them are the responsibility of the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch, with a Federal grand jury doing the actual indictment, after a DOJ prosecutor asks for an indictment.

But you actually knew all that, didn't you?

Pursuing violations of treaties and Federal laws is the SPECIFIC responsibility of the Attorney General, through the Department of Justice. NO ONE ELSE HAS THAT RESPONSIBILITY, so if they don't do it, it doesn't happen.

It is Holder's fucking job, and he is telling us he isn't going to do it, and that is after he told us "we are a nation of laws".

And not only is he not going to do his job, but he is going to subvert anybody else's efforts to follow the law, using our tax dollars to defend the criminals, even to the point of paying for any fines and all lawyer's fees.

That is the hollowest phrase in our current lexicon - "we are a nation of laws." How long before we begin to understand that when a politician says that, then it means that that specific, applicable law will NOT be applied?

Again, it is Holder's JOB to pursue people who break federal laws. Try kidnapping somebody and see how fast they are all over your ass.

But, maybe, if you kidnap someone and then TORTURE them, you will be less guilty, if someone told someone told HIM that a lawyer said it was okay.

Fucking shit, this is a dark day in our history.

Obama lost me today. He's not on my side, and I am not on his. Fuck him. If somebody wastes him - and there are all those right wing crazies out there supported by Rush and his pals - I won't shed a fucking tear. The goddamned back stabber. He knows it's his DOJ's job to pursue this.

He can't pawn it off on Congress; it is not in their powers under the Constitution.

.