Torture Memo Todo
If you're as horrified about the whole torture thing as I am, you might want to consider adding your voice to this ACLU petition requesting that Eric Holder appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate all this torture business. There's also a short (less than 2 min) video there of an ACLU rep describing their position on this situation.
Given the position our political elites have taken lately, public outcry is probably the only force left that could engender investigations. I think it's an endemic and serious problem that we have no mercy as a nation whatsoever for blue collar crime, but as long as a politician sanctioned it, well all of a sudden there's no point in "looking back at the past". We wouldn't want our loyal and dedicated CIA operators to hesitate in the field because they're worried about prosecutions, right? (Actually, I would like CIA ops to hesitate to use torture. That'd be great. But for the sake of the argument, let's say that's a valid argument.)
The point of prosecution is to deter future crime. Can you imagine the response of any politician (or anybody, really) if a murderer said, well ... yeah, I did it, but I'm not going to do it again. Why bother prosecuting me? Let's not get bogged down in the past. We have a lot of things to do, and problems to solve. Let's look to the future.
Every criminal would love to not be prosecuted. And people who know criminals often feel torn about their prosecutions. That's natural. This is unfortunately what is happening with our political elites and media types. They _know_ these people. They don't want to hurt them. And it's hard to hurt them. And politically difficult. And... there's so many things to do right now, that it's easy to just... not go there.
But we can't afford that as a nation. Our leaders need to understand it's not ok to break the law. They don't really understand that right now. That due process is essential. That the Constitution's not just for when it's convenient. And electing Obama didn't magically erase the weight of infrastructure that supports that misunderstanding.
So... if you think similarly that we're in a tricky spot, I think it'd be a great idea to add your voice to petitions from organizations like the ACLU calling for independent investigations.
Given the position our political elites have taken lately, public outcry is probably the only force left that could engender investigations. I think it's an endemic and serious problem that we have no mercy as a nation whatsoever for blue collar crime, but as long as a politician sanctioned it, well all of a sudden there's no point in "looking back at the past". We wouldn't want our loyal and dedicated CIA operators to hesitate in the field because they're worried about prosecutions, right? (Actually, I would like CIA ops to hesitate to use torture. That'd be great. But for the sake of the argument, let's say that's a valid argument.)
The point of prosecution is to deter future crime. Can you imagine the response of any politician (or anybody, really) if a murderer said, well ... yeah, I did it, but I'm not going to do it again. Why bother prosecuting me? Let's not get bogged down in the past. We have a lot of things to do, and problems to solve. Let's look to the future.
Every criminal would love to not be prosecuted. And people who know criminals often feel torn about their prosecutions. That's natural. This is unfortunately what is happening with our political elites and media types. They _know_ these people. They don't want to hurt them. And it's hard to hurt them. And politically difficult. And... there's so many things to do right now, that it's easy to just... not go there.
But we can't afford that as a nation. Our leaders need to understand it's not ok to break the law. They don't really understand that right now. That due process is essential. That the Constitution's not just for when it's convenient. And electing Obama didn't magically erase the weight of infrastructure that supports that misunderstanding.
So... if you think similarly that we're in a tricky spot, I think it'd be a great idea to add your voice to petitions from organizations like the ACLU calling for independent investigations.