The memos’ matter-of-fact clinical descriptions belie the harsh tactics to which they gave a green light. They set the C.I.A. loose to slam suspects’ heads into walls up to 30 times in a row, to deprive suspects of sleep for more than a week straight, to confine them to small dark boxes for hours at a time, to slap them repeatedly in the face and abdomen, and to suffocate them with water to induce the perception that they are drowning.
Good to remember what is at stake here, no matter how some that appear to be on the right side want to parse things (comments). I comment on Dahlia Lithwick's recent article on the memoranda release here. The fact this administration should be honored for what it is doing -- particularly given how far we are from the ideal -- does not mean we also should not note what it is not. Particularly, since pressure from miscreants like the ACLU actually mean something these days.
There is much to say here, but I want to emphasize a few things. First, it is outrageous to take investigation of agents off the table. How do we know what happened without investigations? Second, as with the military, many in the intelligence field were horrified by the policies. Some are on record knowing what seems relatively obvious: they broke our obligations, legal and moral.* Third, if I thought there was a chance in hell Obama would investigate or target higher-ups, I would be less cynical. Finally, prosecutions of everyone is not the way to go, pragmatically or morally. But, it might be in some cases, and full disclosure and assistance should be required to get immunity or a token punishment. There is a big difference between doing nothing and prosecution, a lot in between.
More change:
Two years ago this month, the Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. E.P.A., ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harm the environment and public health and, if not, to explain why. Agency scientists were virtually unanimous in determining that they do, but top officials of the George W. Bush administration suppressed the finding and took no action.
New boss, not the same as old boss. More here particularly on how "so much policy-making gets delegated to the executive branch." Who would you rather control it? Again, it suggests the long haul as well as the results of advocacy group efforts plus court review, even if the results are only partially successful. Food for thought for the leads in Born Yesterday, either version, though the original was on recently. I'll end on a quote:
Billie: This country and its institutions belong to the people who inhibit it.
Paul Verrall: inHABit.
Billie Dawn: InHABit it.
She was right both times.
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* Why this bending over backward to protect the ones who did not or to add further justification to those who promote the idea that the mentality behind the memoranda was necessary and proper? We are supposed to be horrified that these people might be upset? Act differently? The people who aided and abetted the poisoning of our good name? Why exactly? How can we move on, if the same people are involved and making policy? What incentive do they have?
Then, there is the reliance on assumed to be legal orders defense generally. One top case in this area is U.S. v. Barker, involving the break-in to the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Not waterboarding, breaking and entering. Also, the case fell on failure of letting them raise the offense. One of the two judges in the majority noted that a jury might determine that a "fairly outrageous" order could not be relied upon. Furthermore, the dissent was quite persuasive:
To the extent appellants are deemed worthy of sympathy, that has been provided by the probation. To give them not only sympathy but exoneration, and absolution, is to stand the law upside down, in my view, and to sack legal principle instead of relying on the elements of humane administration that are available to buffer any grinding edge of law. That this tolerance of unlawful official action is a defense available for selective undermining of civil rights laws leads me to shake my head both in wonder and despair.
Me too.