1 Boring Old Man

this is a time for reflection, not retribution…

1. All of this Torture business was done in secret. The only oversight was hack DoJ lawyers who wrote these obscene Memos justifying unjustifiable atrocities. In my mind, they betrayed their profession and our country. It is a matter for the courts and that’s where it should be sent forthwith. Professional censure at the least, criminal prosecution if possible. In the end, the Law is our way of saying what is unacceptable. What they did was unacceptable.
2. All of this insanity during the last eight years – Imperial presidency, torture, invading Iraq, Domestic Surveillance, Outing a C.I.A. Agent, lying about Intelligence, etc. was manipulating our system rather than representing it. They cannot be impeached – the time has passed. I think that Leahy’s idea of a Truth Commission is the best. To use Obama’s words, we cannot "reflect" until we know what happened. We need to know it all – all of us. Then we can reflect.

The Torturers’ Manifesto
Editorial

New York Times
April 18, 2009

^{To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity. Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.}

^{In one of the more nauseating passages, Jay Bybee, then an assistant attorney general and now a federal judge, wrote admiringly about a contraption for waterboarding that would lurch a prisoner upright if he stopped breathing while water was poured over his face. He praised the Central Intelligence Agency for having doctors ready to perform an emergency tracheotomy if necessary. These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values…}

^{But this cannot be the end of the scrutiny for these and other decisions by the Bush administration. Until Americans and their leaders fully understand the rules the Bush administration concocted to justify such abuses — and who set the rules and who approved them — there is no hope of fixing a profoundly broken system of justice and ensuring that that these acts are never repeated.}

^{The abuses and the dangers do not end with the torture memos. Americans still know far too little about President Bush’s decision to illegally eavesdrop on Americans — a program that has since been given legal cover by the Congress…}

^{That investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.}

^{These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it. After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.}