I don’t see that as the question at all. There is no question in my mind that they should be prosecuted. But they won’t be – and this is just one of many disappoints I have for President Obama.
It’s got nothing to do with my political agenda, except to the extent that my agenda includes “not torturing people”. I also didn’t say anything about prosecuting Bush; I said “Bush Administration officials”. For that matter, if any Obama Administration officials authorized torture, they should also be prosecuted.
Seriously, your knee is jerking so hard you might just have broken your own jaw. How could prosecuting a guy who’s out of office and is already the least popular living ex-president possibly “further my agenda” (whatever it may be)? It’s obviously not a vote-winner, as you pointed out in your own post.
If anyone here has an agenda, it’s you: you are quite blithely skipping over the whole torture thing, which suggests you’re either okay with it or just don’t want to talk about it.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
I don’t see that as the question at all. There is no question in my mind that they should be prosecuted. But they won’t be – and this is just one of many disappoints I have for President Obama.
[/QUOTE]
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about whether there should be a prosecution as a practical matter. I can’t tell where John Yoo’s bullshit ends and Bush’s willingness to accept it as justification begins. Plus, we’re not talking about Nixon; Bush and company were doing their jobs (in a sense). That said, I vaguely recall that there were CIA officials authorizing waterboardings before the administration even tried to justify it, and those acts (assuming they occurred) should absolutely be prosecuted.
If you ask me, creating the precedent that the President of the United States will be held accountable for his criminal actions is a pretty significant benefit. If you’d done that with Nixon instead of letting him be pardoned by his own VP, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Based on the discussion so far, I want to clarify my original two questions:
- Should Bush-era officials be charged with war crimes, i.e. torture. This is a moral, not a practical question. My take is that, morally, it should be done; as Grumman so cogently pointed out, it would set an excellent precedent that neither the government nor the officials thereof are above the law. This should be formally recognized in court.
It is almost certainly not going to happen, as a purely practical matter. And it does not have to be up to the Obama administration to take any further steps, by the way. They have already done all they needed to do by releasing this memo.
- Is the Obama administration vulnerable to similar charges? This is more a question of fact. Has the Obama administration broken U.S. or international laws in the area of torture? Or possibly as another question of judgment, as JasperST rather clumsily tried to point out: Does extra-judicial killing, such as the assassination of Osama bin Laden and any number of other members of Al Qaeda and other similar organizations, sink to the moral level of torture?
The election is not the issue that I would like to discuss, nor are the immediate political implications. I am much more interested in the long-term effects of either course.
Roddy
I’m quite aware. I was on a mobile device and didn’t think explaining to you was worth the trouble of hitting capslock.
You did defend the practice, since you suggest that waterboarding wasn’t torture because we do it to SEALs. Does your pedantic nature like the lowercase “s”? I knew you would.
I think it’s pathetic that you’d overlook an administration committing war-crimes because they are in your favored party.
What makes you think that the beneficial treatment of prisoners of war is one of our “founding values”? Because POWs were not treated well in the US’s early wars.
Assuming that the laws on the books and condemnation of those practices by the Obama admin haven’t indicated that America disapproves of torture and murder, what would be the benefit of such an enhancement of the US’s reputation?
I never said that.
We’d have fewer enemies, and fewer Americans would indulge in such behavior if they didn’t know the government and public approved of it. And (among other things) the Obama Administration officially permanently shielding the torturers from any investigation or prosecution demonstrates quite clearly that he at best doesn’t care about torture, and probably approves of it.
You certainly imply it.
Couldn’t Obama issue a blanket pardon for all crimes committed by (all) previous administrations? Of course if I were in his place I’d wait until the upcoming election is finished.
Hey, you can access Wikipedia. Good for you. I didn’t actually suggest anything, just made a statement of fact. Those with the political agenda are doing the speculating. Whether waterboarding is torture or not isn’t for me to say, I thought it actually had been ruled on years ago. I guess the ruling was unsatisfactory so we need to revisit the issue, redefine it and prosecute since the current administration can’t run on its’ record.
Have you even been to boot camp? I would have traded waterboarding for quite a bit of it.
When it was done to US citizens by foreign countries, it was torture and the punishment for the commission of that torture was death.
I’d rather face a quick execution than the possibility of being tortured for an indefinite period of time at the whim of my captors. In fact, torture is almost always considered a war crime, whereas execution usually isn’t (assuming a trial is given).
Cripes, are you people still on this shit?
If Obama is running against a candidate who isn’t in the race, again, maybe he is more worried than I thought he was.
Not that he’s rather transparently pandering to his base - oh no, not at all. I suppose making some noises about overturning DOMA (without actually doing anything) is next.
Anything to distract the electorate from the latest fat headedness from Mr. “How Dare the Supreme Court Suggest Overturning My Only Domestic Accomplishment, Such as It Is”.
Regards,
Shodan
The trouble here is, since you don’t agree with the stated principle, that is to say, “America shouldn’t torture people” you don’t think anyone should be punished for that transgression.
It’s fine if you think torture is okay, but we, as a country, need to be better than that.
No, the trouble is that Democrats are obsessed with getting revenge on Bush for winning the elections. It’s petty, it’s stupid, I am hopeful that in 2012 it will be counter-productive, but apparently the Dems can’t think of anything except BushBadBushBadBushBadBushBadBushBadBushBadBushBad.
Regards,
Shodan
What I think should have been done was some sort of truth and reconcilliation hearings back in 2009. It should have been as non-partisan as possible under the circumstances; it should not have been directed at legal prosecutions; it should have sought to publically expose all of the wrong acts done by the American government and its representatives between 2001 and 2009; and it should have been part of a complete and public disavowal of these wrong acts as instruments of government. Basically it should have been a public admission that we, as a nation, did something wrong without an attempt to target individuals.
But bringing it up now? This makes it look like an election year issue. Something as terrible as torture should not be reduced to a partisan political issue.
And even as a partisan political issue, it’s a bad idea. If the Obama administration tries to make this into an “us vs them” wedge issue it’s very likely to blow up in their face. Between 2001 and 2009, for better or worse (although mostly worse as it turned out) the Bush administration was the government of the United States. Attacking the Bush administration could easily end up looking like an attack on the United States. The public could end up rallying behind the Republicans in a feeling of “our country, right or wrong”.
Not at all like the Republicans, who keep comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter.
How are people getting that this is Obama playing politics with the issue? If they are, they are doing a terrible job. I haven’t read word one about this in the MSM and would be surprised if even one in a thousand Americans know anything about it.
I’m not sure there should be a “s” at the end of election. 
In any case, you think that war crimes should go unpunished. We understand. I suspect that this wouldn’t be the case if the president in question were a Democrat.
Hardly. But the memo did just come out. Do you want us to address it four years ago when it was hidden?
Tell me, do you think, in the abstract, that presidents can’t commit crimes? Would you have supported prosecutions for Watergate? How about if a president had a political rival shot?
No. We do think Bush was bad, and we don’t think there should be a statute of limitations on torture crimes, but that’s hardly all that Democrats are talking about, and to suggest otherwise is inexcusably inane.