The Obama administration will not prosecute CIA officers who participated in harsh interrogations that critics say crossed the line into torture, CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta said Friday. ...
It was the clearest statement yet on what Panetta and other Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from the Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that the Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.
As noted here, this is b.s. I put aside the "critics" framing. The "critics" per se don't matter. "Critics" who say the moon is made of blue cheese are not the concern here. The concern is what the LAW including international law "says." I also don't like the use of a weenie term like "harsh interrogations." What the hell does that mean? "Harsh" interrogations in various respects are legal. Just ask various people who were interrogated by members of a U.S. police department. We are talking torture and the like here. Laura Penny fits again:
Bullshit distracts with exaggeration, omission, obfuscation, stock phrases, pretentious jargon, faux-folksiness, feigned ignorance, and sloganeering homilities. When Dubya speaks of freedom and liberation, and claims to be praying for peace as the army disgorges load after load of bombs, he is not lying. He is bullshitting. A lie would be easier to disprove. Bullshit is a committee-drafted simpleton's sermon about evildoers and terra and freedom being God's gift to all men.
-- Laura Penny, Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth About Bullshit
There is a certain curious nature to this story. Some readers might wonder about the proviso that "legal orders" would be involved. Now, some would think this means "orders that are legal," that is, orders that followed laws against cruel, degrading and inhumane (not "harsh") interrogations. The last link provides clarification, the "just following orders" defense:
In an obvious effort to avoid fouling the nest he is about to occupy at CIA, he tried mightily to argue that individuals who were told that torture techniques like waterboarding were legal “ought not to be prosecuted or investigated” for following the guidelines from the Attorney General and the Justice Department.
Ah yes. We have an amendment to the business about the law being what the Supreme Court says it is. Now, if the underlinings of the President says something is "legal," it is. Neat trick! Torture is wrong. But, the Bush Justice Department says "x" is not torture. Thus, it is not. Such alchemy was sort of which medieval scientists (perhaps who read about the "water torture") only dreamed. Unfortunately, oh too bad, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says early on (not being written by fools) that:
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
Nuremberg suggests that even judges (dare we say the Supreme Court?!) would fit into this principle. To avoid complex discussion, I put that aside, and simply note that clearly policy makers in the executive department are covered here. We are left with a policy concern:
"It was my opinion we just can't operate if people feel even if they are following the legal opinions of the Justice Department" they could be in danger of prosecution, he said.
We are left with nice but largely empty without more words that "no one is above the law" (patently false in reality) and that those that deliberately violated the law would be prosecuted. What does that mean? It apparently doesn't mean, again, what the treaty we signed says it means: those that tortured should be liable. It seems to leave open (fwiw, and in the last few years, not much in many cases) the possibility that some extreme and/or blatant example would in some fashion be targeted.
And, even this, at times, seems to be something only made crystal clear via a pulling teeth with pliers technique. It isn't enough. You cannot upfront, before there is time for any investigation, stack the deck like this. In reality, I have little hope of much being done against such people. But, it is much worse to as matter of policy take it off the table. The police cannot always protect us, and as a matter of practice, might selectively protect certain people over others. This is different from them blatantly saying it is their policy to do so.
Finally, more enabling. "Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoners for the purpose of torture." Mistakes were made, but their heart was in the right place. It is aggravating enough that sizable majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the presidency is not enough, no, we have to rely on the (often forlorn) hope of Republican sanity on the issues. Clear majority in the House, presidential support, and high 50s in the Senate? Not enough! I reckon with blue dogs and the like, we can be safe with about 70 Dems there.
Until then, we have to provide CYA to the Bush Administration, make it policy of the Obama Administration, that following orders is an excuse for torture. OTOH, we can try this path cited by Obama's hero:
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
After all, isn't Obama a person of faith?