Last week, Jim reported on a letter sent by Hillary Clinton on behalf of President Obama thanking the British government for continuing to keep secrets about the methods of torture used by the American government under George W. Bush. Just a couple weeks ago, Barack Obama promised open government, but already, the Obama policy seems to be promote secrecy.
In a confirmation of this Obama secrecy policy, Leon Panetta told senators in a confirmation hearing last week that it is the policy of the Obama Administration to not prosecute any government agents who committed acts of torture under George W. Bush. Panetta suggested that the torturers should not be subject to prosecution because they were given orders to torture. That’s the same justification that was used by Nazi concentration camp guards.
Leon Panetta and Barack Obama seem to be telling us that they consider it legal for government agents to break the law, so long as the President and the President’s aides order them to do it.
Democrats, you would not have accepted that kind of outrageous action by George W. Bush. Why are you accepting it from Barack Obama?
What the Obama Administration doesn’t seem to understand is that the law isn’t supposed to be optional. It’s supposed to apply to everybody – equally. That’s in the Constitution. We’re supposed to have equal protection under the law, and part of that arrangement is that people aren’t supposed to be prosecuted for crimes only when it’s convenient for those in power.
Barack Obama and his aides seem to have decided that prosecuting torturers is inconvenient for them, and so they’re just not going to do it. The message President Obama is sending is not just that those torturers are above the law, but that the President of the United States is above the law as well.
How is that a change from the attitude we had under President Bush?
Try the Milgram experiments, and maybe a bit of Zimbardo’s Prison Study.
Practically every single one of us would have tortured and/or killed if put in a uniform and dropped in a situation where authority was telling us to do it.
These people were put in a horrible and surreal scenario, and though it may ease our minds to imagine that we could not be pushed to such lengths (I don’t know what inter-military bullying is like for a start, but I’m guessing it’s best avoided), the fact is it was KNOWN that these people would do horrible things in this situation.
The horrible thing is less their actions and more the inevitable set-up that was put in place by people well-educated enough to have known the consequences.
Whilst still partially to blame, I fear the prosecution of these individuals may only serve to take attention away from the institution’s abuse of power and responsibility.
How does the prosecution of torturers take attention away of the institution’s responsibility? Did prosecution of Nazi prison guards take away from Hitler’s responsibility? No.
If these people who tortured are not prosecuted, it gives carte blanche to the current President and to future Presidents: Torture will be allowed – no one will be held responsible.
Prosecutions would expose the truth about the torture conducted under George W. Bush, encouraging accountability of the leaders who ordered it. Refusing to prosecute will keep the truth hidden.
And what if it was Hitler prosecuting the Nazi prison guards?
I understand soldiers are paid to do as they’re told, not to question the moral judgement of those giving the orders.
J.Clifford..Is there any circumstance under which you would approve of, or employ torture as the means to extract information?
Nope.
I don’t share your opinion, just like I don’t agree with the Amish, but I admire your willingnes to give up your life to what I consider an evil ideology.
That’s generous, but I don’t have to give up my life to any evil ideology. No evil ideology has even come close to asking for my life. I’d rather give up my life than give my assent to a government that tortures in my name, but honestly, conditions haven’t come to that. That’s what really crazy about the situation. Hardly anybody is actually at risk from any terrorist, even in theory. The huge majority of us are absolutely, perfectly safe.
J.Clifford, weren’t you part of the posts making fun of the uproar over the Cartoon of Mohammed. I think I was, so we will both be hunted down by people who’s most notable contribution to the modern world is the IED. As a matter of fact their golden age ended in 1050 AD. Most of the achievements that are credited to Muslim then were actually the work of the Dhimmi’s.
Statistically we as individuals are safe when riding in a car, but we still wear seatbelts.
The risk of an automobile accident is thousands of time bigger than the risk of a terrorist attack. Most of us WILL be in at least one automobile accident in our lives. Almost nobody will be harmed in a terrorist attack.
I oppose the Islamic fundamentalist desire to repress just as I oppose the Christian fundamentalist desire to repress. I don’t suspect that there is big risk that either will literally kill me, though both end up killing some people.
“The risk of an automobile accident is thousands of time bigger than the risk of a terrorist attack.”
That depends on where you live.
“I don’t suspect that there is big risk that either will literally kill me, though both end up killing some people.”
You see them as the same?
Uh, Jon, no terrorist is about to kill you. Sorry, you might get killed by a car, or an American, but not an East Asian, not unless you go over to East Asia and try to start a fight. Your logic doesn’t hold.
Got to say, all the Muslims I’ve met have been wonderfully decent people. Trustworthy and caring, even the gang of Muslim lads around one of my old colleges were still friendly and funny!
Wish I could say the same for the Christians. I’ve met some very scary Christian people, and have received threats as well as insults. Met some great Christian people too, but there are a lot of them so it would be truly frightening if I hadn’t.
Muslims aren’t about to kill us over a cartoon. They feel scapegoated and were looking for a way to express that, and much as a minority took it to extremes the media was prone to jump on that rather than the general response. Scary stories are selling stories.
The chances of being attacked by the average Muslim citizen in East Asia are about 0.
The chances go up if you torture innocent people and still try to claim to be the good guys.
No person would hear of their child being tortured/killed and take kindly to it. If a state justifies this then it makes itself into an enemy.
All because I disagree with who should be blamed (I say purely corporate, the men made to torture are likely to have nightmares about it for the rest of their lives) doesn’t mean I agree with torture. The arguments for it are pretty flimsy, and it’s right out the window of being reasonable if you want to gain the hearts and minds of people and set a good example for how to run a modern civilisation.