U.S. Solicitor General under Reagan: Bush broke laws on torture

[sabra]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68C4CF20100913

New book says President Bush broke laws on torture

NEW YORK (Reuters Life) - Torture sanctioned by President George W. Bush to fight terrorists was illegal and wrong and America has yet to confront the topic to avoid future abuses, the U.S. Solicitor General for President Ronald Reagan argues in a new book.

"Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror" by Harvard Law scholar Charles Fried, a Republican, and his son Gregory Fried -- a Suffolk University philosophy professor who votes Democrat -- asks if it is permissible to torture in order to safeguard Americans.

Despite the differing politics of the father-son authors, they agreed it was never morally right to torture and therefore never permissible to do so.

"I think that (the Bush administration) broke the law and what they did was disgusting and terrible and degrading," Charles Fried told Reuters in an interview.

...

The one area where the pair could not reach consensus was if the torture undertaken during the Bush administration years was wrong, what should be done about it?

Gregory believes senior administration officials should be prosecuted, but he does not name them in the book. Charles thinks such prosecutions could imperil America's democracy.

"To go ahead and prosecute them is to set up a cycle where every politician is afraid if he loses office someone will find something to prosecute him for," Charles said, stressing that the political cost of prosecutions would be too high.

Instead, the pair suggest some compromises could heal America's conscience and bring legal resolution. Gregory suggested one option was for President Barack Obama, before leaving office, to acknowledge the illegality of torture and pardon those who might otherwise be prosecuted.

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1. Oh no, we can't prosecute them

That could set a bad precedent of actually, you know, observing our laws and the ideals we claim to stand for. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate these motherfuckers, both the Bush administration and its torturers, and the people who have the evidence in hand and still can't quite work up the nerve to hold the war criminals responsible.