Gathering evidence and prosecuting under the Rules of Criminal Procedure IS the means by which this nation strips partisan passions from the search for justice. To claim some special effort is required just promotes the beltway fantasy that dealing with crime through the criminal justice system would be (or could be) "politicizing policy."
This adminstration's refusal to acknowledge the fact that the evidence at hand mandates immediate prosecution is bad enough. But as they seek to escape duty, Obama and Holder keep parroting pro-torture propaganda.
The proposition that any CIA agent who participated in the "bush program" actually believed, in good faith, that slamming a captive's head against a wall 30 times; keeping them awake for a week and a half; or subjecting them to water torture did not constitute cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, is absurd on it's face.
But, even if it were not absurd, it is the role of the court, not the prosecutor (let alone a pre-judging president), to be the finder of fact on such matters. While "just following orders" might conceivably be a defense in a given case, it mustn't be allowed to be institutionalized as a blanket "get out of jail free card" by either prosecutorial discretion or presidential fiat.
The devastating consequences of their dereliction isn't limited to the mockery they are making of criminal justice.
- It makes Obama a benevolent dictator who can "take away" or "give us back" the Constitution. For the moment he has "banned" torture, but when he arrogates unto himself the power to "ban" that which is ALREADY "banned," he confirms the fascist fantasy that he has the power to resurrect the "bush program." (When high officials violate law, the required response is to prosecute to enforce the law, not issue executive orders that duplicate the law.)
- It puts the men and women of our armed services at risk. (They are stripped of the protection from mistreatment afforded by our adherence to treaty.)
- It makes ALL CIA agents war criminals in the public mind. (Even if a vast majority opted to "just say no," the assertion that suspending and prosecuting those who participated would somehow destroy the CIA's ability to "protect us," implies that most were either involved or approved.)
- It validates Cheney's "position" that their criminal program was (or could be) "legal." (If it were so clearly a crime, bush and cheney would certainly be in the dock by now -- and would have been impeached years ago.)
- It politicizes criminal justice (a very real consequence), while legitimizing the meme that prosecution would (or could) "criminalize policy" (an outcome our criminal justice system is designed to eliminate.)
- It promotes the torturers' propaganda that prosecution would be "retribution." (Which requires one to believe that the rules of criminal procedure are a joke and incapable of producing a verdict that is free of passion and prejudice.)
- It endorses the fascist fantasy that cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment is not worthy of judicial determination, and should rather be left as a matter of political opinion (open to "discussions" and "debate" and "agreements to disagree").
- It tells the victims of torture -- or for those who died in the process, the families they are survived by -- that we don't consider the horrors they were subjected to in our name to be worthy of the "distraction" of a full public accounting. It extends their ordeal.
Given the destructive consequences of their immoral and irrational refusal to even acknowledge that the crimes are crimes, it's hard (impossible?) to imagine what horrible consequences they imagine would result from prosecution. And like with Saddam's WMD, the "Chicken Littles" describe no mechanism by which this "political mushroom cloud" would "tear the nation apart."
The Obama administration's attempt to protect the perpetrators from prosecution doesn't even accomplish that goal -- it merely shifts the obligation to the other parties to Article III of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N Convention against torture.
If our so-called "leaders" don't wake up to reality, the ordeal of having to watch in shame as other countries deal with "our war criminals," is a disgrace this nation may never fully recover from.
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