# Obama Kicks Bush Torturers in the Nuts **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 16, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338 "2009-04-16T21:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/1 "2009-04-16T21:24:27Z")
Obama releases the torture memos. Torture is bad, m’kay? And you members of the Bush team that authorized torture? You’re gonna get kicked in the nuts like this over and over again, over the next couple of years. [http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc\_memos.html](http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html) ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/2 "2009-04-16T21:48:17Z")
[Andrew Sullivan responds](http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-banality-of-evil.html): > [@](#): > > Perhaps you are reading these documents alongside me. I’ve only read the Bybee memo, as chilling an artefact as you are ever likely to read in a democratic society, the work clearly not of a lawyer assessing torture techniques in good faith, but of an administration official tasked with finding how torture techniques already decided upon can be parsed in exquisitely disingenuous ways to fit the law, even when they clearly do not. This is what Hannah Arendt wrote of when she talked of the banality of evil. To read a bureaucrat finding ways to describe and parse away the clear infliction of torture on a terror suspect well outside any “ticking time bomb” scenario is to realize what so many of us feared and sensed from the shards of information we have been piecing together for years. It is all true. These memos form a coda to the Red Cross report, confirming its evidentiary conclusions, while finding exquisite, legalistic and preposterous ways to deny the obvious. > > I do not believe that any American president has ever orchestrated, constructed or so closely monitored the torture of other human beings the way George W. Bush did. It is clear that it is pre-meditated; and it is clear that the parsing of torture techniques that you read in the report is a simply disgusting and repellent piece of dishonesty and bad faith. When you place it alongside the Red Cross’ debriefing of the torture victims, the fit is almost perfect. I say “almost” because even Jay Bybee, in this unprofessional travesty of lawyering, stipulates that these techniques might be combined successively in any ways that could cumulatively become torture even in his absurd redefinition of the term. And yet the ICRC report shows, as one might imagine, that outside these specious legalisms, such distinctions never hold in practice. And they didn’t. Human beings were contorted into classic stress positions used by the Gestapo; they had towels tied around their necks in order to smash their bodies against walls; they were denied of all sleep for up to eleven days and nights at a time; they were stuck in tiny suffocating boxes; they were waterboarded just as the victims of the Khmer Rouge were waterboarded. And through all this, Bush and Cheney had lawyers prepared to write elaborate memos saying that all of this was legal, constitutional, moral and not severe pain and suffering. > > Bybee is not representing justice in this memo. He is representing the president. And the president is seeking to commit war crimes. And he succeeded. This much we now know beyond any reasonable doubt. It is a very dark day for this country, but less dark than every day since Cheney decided to turn the US into a torturing country until now. [Here’s more](http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/feature/2009/04/16/waterboarding_olc/index.html) on Obama’s statement re: the release, the Attorney General’s position on prosecuting the waterboarders, and the administration’s rationale as to maintaining a level of secrecy re: classified information in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/3 "2009-04-16T21:51:33Z")
[A news article](http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/837-cia-torture-memos-said-interrogators-could-use-insects.html) with a shorter synopsis of the contents than the actual PDFs. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/4 "2009-04-16T21:57:01Z")
Yay! May justice be swift. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/5 "2009-04-16T22:09:30Z")
Read the story. Damn no trials. Well at least the information is indisputably out there now. It’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/6 "2009-04-16T22:11:50Z")
I very much doubt that justice is possible. Retribution, perhaps, but not justice. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/7 "2009-04-16T22:13:16Z")
What about impeaching Jay Bybee as a federal judge for committing war crimes? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/8 "2009-04-16T22:21:39Z")
Merely a hired legal hack, a Republican version of the Soviet _apparatchik_. We can follow the slime trails, we already know where they lead. It isn’t just to pursue the functionaries while the puppet masters sit on their porch rocking chairs and dictate their memoirs. Abhorrence and disdain will have to do, its all we’re likely to get. So it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/9 "2009-04-16T22:54:13Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > [A news article](http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/837-cia-torture-memos-said-interrogators-could-use-insects.html) with a shorter synopsis of the contents than the actual PDFs. I really, really like that bit : > [@](#): > > Indeed, former CIA Director Michael Hayden sharply criticized Obama’s decision to release the memos, telling the Associated Press the documents will now “deter other governments from cooperating with the United States because it shows the U.S. can’t keep anything secret. Yup, the problem isn’t that the US image is, and will remain tarnished for a long time because of everything Gitmo stood for - the problem is YOU TATTLED ON US ! Bad Obama ! Learn from bastions of international cooperation and trustworthiness such as Soviet Russia : no one ever knew what the hell happened in the basement of the Lubianka, and people loved them for it ! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/10 "2009-04-16T23:46:16Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Abhorrence and disdain will have to do, its all we’re likely to get. So it goes. Yeah, and it’s really going to stop the next lot to realize that there will be no real consequences. If the people who are asked to actually perform the torture realize that the eventual result will be a decade or two in prison, perhaps the next puppet-master will get a, “Fuck no! Are you crazy?” from his henchmen. I am sadly and sorely disappointed in the new administration on this issue. I’d hoped for better. I’d hoped that Obama’s administration would at least _try_ the alleged criminals. _sigh_ Same shit; different day. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/11 "2009-04-17T00:01:47Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Read the story. Damn no trials. Well at least the information is indisputably out there now. It’s a start. Doesn’t the UN have the ability to prosecute for war crimes? Is that a possibility? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/12 "2009-04-17T00:07:42Z")
With all due, **Frank** , how? What prosecutor in his/her right mind would take this case, knowing they’ll be up against battalions of highly-paid lawyers. The evidentiary stuff alone will take years if they decide to gum up the works, and you can bet your ass they will, this is a billable hours bonanza, an avalanche of Benjamins! And the jury? To have any hope, you’d have to have a jury that believes as we do, that the law cannot be modified to admit the unspeakable simply by a highly sourced memo. All of them like minded with us. And then witnesses, dragged kicking and screaming, leaving long fingernail ruts in the linoleum. Maybe a nice long diversion through Federal court about the legality of subpoenas. Then another on the application of the Fifth Amendment. Can you plead the Fifth while simultaneously claiming that your actions or inactions were not illegal? Or can you use them as successive defenses falling back into the second decade of deliberations? A nightmare. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/13 "2009-04-17T00:09:40Z")
Well, it’s very early days yet. I don’t think it would be wise for Obama to start talking about how we’re gonna hunt down the torturers and put them in jail. Not now, anyway. He can’t be perceived as being politically motivated. When we start prosecuting these guys in future years, it’s got to be because the evidence demanded it. And the public has to be prepared for it. Obviously certain types of people are going to support torture. But most Americans when confronted with the reality of torture will come around. They might think a terrorist deserves a bit of torture, but they aren’t going to like the idea that the CIA has the power to torture. It’s not so much what torture does to the victims as what it does to the perpetrators. People might imagine they want terrorists tortured, but they haven’t thought it through. Once they do, they’ll support prosecution of the torturers, those who gave the orders, and those who facilitated. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/14 "2009-04-17T00:18:30Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What prosecutor in his/her right mind would take this case, knowing they’ll be up against battalions of highly-paid lawyers. … > > And the jury? … > > And then witnesses, dragged kicking and screaming, leaving long fingernail ruts in the linoleum. … > > A nightmare. You’ve got good points. So what? I’ve never seen justice defined as ‘an easy conviction’. Attempting to convict the criminals in the Bush administration would be better by far than just throwing up our hands and saying, “Whaddya gonna do?” It would demonstrate a strength of purpose and a moral base in our national soul. Instead, I’m left with the niggling suspicion that what I’m _really_ hearing in the news is, “Y’know, we might want to do that ourselves someday.” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/15 "2009-04-17T00:19:03Z")
And one more thing. Even if this never leads to the prosecution of more than a few of the perps, exposure is a pretty good second place. Especially exposure of the fact that the torture accomplished NOTHING. It’s one thing when the torturers could pretend to be Jack Bauer, kicking terrorist ass to keep Americans safe. It’s another when it’s revealed that they were lawyers writing memos, guys who needed a memo telling them it was OK before they’d do anything, guys who were just sadists, guys who tortured the wrong people, guys who provided no actual valuable intelligence, guys who ruined relations with friendly nations, guys who made things ten times harder for the people who were really trying to accomplish something in Iraq. A Jack Bauer who makes his own rules and who tortures a scumbag to save New York can be forgiven. But that’s not who these guys were. They were bureaucrats who tortured helpless prisoners for nothing. And the truth will come out. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/16 "2009-04-17T00:21:31Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It’s another when it’s revealed that they were lawyers writing memos, guys who needed a memo telling them it was OK before they’d do anything, guys who were just sadists, guys who tortured the wrong people, guys who provided no actual valuable intelligence, guys who ruined relations with friendly nations, guys who made things ten times harder for the people who were really trying to accomplish something in Iraq. Guys who were following orders? ---
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/17 "2009-04-17T00:28:24Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Yeah, and it’s really going to stop the next lot to realize that there will be no real consequences. If the people who are asked to actually perform the torture realize that the eventual result will be a decade or two in prison, perhaps the next puppet-master will get a, “Fuck no! Are you crazy?” from his henchmen. > > I am sadly and sorely disappointed in the new administration on this issue. I’d hoped for better. I’d hoped that Obama’s administration would at least try the alleged criminals. > > _sigh_ Same shit; different day. Unfortunately, that will only work for a few years until this decade is looked upon as quaint by the next bunch of henchmen. I think going after the CIA agents that did the torturing as a matter of deterrence will cause more problems than it would prevent (unless they were the ones who requested the authority in the first place). I do hope for prosecutions of those who gave orders, those who provided legal cover and some kind of lawyering job to the law so this doesn’t happen again. I have no idea how to do any of those things, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/18 "2009-04-17T00:28:52Z")
I just think Obama’s announcements that they aren’t interested in prosecuting these guys have a whiff of hostage negotiator to them. He doesn’t want to be seen as leading the charge. And so he’ll hold back publicly, and release all this crap, and pretty soon the American people are going to be demanding that these guys get prosecuted. And so, more in sorrow than in anger, he’ll give in and let justice take it’s course. Or so I believe. Could be wrong. But a president who really really wanted to let these guys off the hook would’ve fought hard not to release these memos. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/19 "2009-04-17T00:33:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I just think Obama’s announcements that they aren’t interested in prosecuting these guys have a whiff of hostage negotiator to them. … > > … But a president who really really wanted to let these guys off the hook would’ve fought hard not to release these memos. Well, I hope you’re right, and I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338/20 "2009-04-17T00:46:19Z")
You know, if they had even one example of torture providing information that actually saves lives by preventing an attack…we wouldn’t stand a chance. They could just stand there and shake their heads (more in sorrow than in anger) at our naive insistance on morality, pat us on the head and suggest we leave all this to the grown-ups. Like they used to do when we asked uncomfortable questions about Cental American nuns, and stuff like that. But they don’t, apparently, or they’d use it. So, in all the instances of torture, it never had a tangible benefit. So worse than vile, corrupt, and an abomination, its also impractical. It doesn’t work. I don’t much like engaging with minds who find that compelling when mere humanity won’t carry the day. But if we must, we must: it doesn’t work. You get that, guys? Not only should we got to Hell for doing it, it doesn’t work. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-kicks-bush-torturers-in-the-nuts/493338.md?page=2)