It's just not rocket science!
Amazing! Once again the DEMs have allowed the GOP to redirect a critically important argument to the GOP’s advantage. The GOP has essentially changed the discussion of "enhanced interogation techniques" from “Is ‘water boarding’ torture?” to “ Was ‘water boarding’ effective?”
If ‘water boarding’ is torture then these horrible acts, over two hundred of them admitted to by government officials, were against both federal and international law. It does not matter if the “technique” was effective or not! It is especially egregious that these acts were committed in an attempt to prove a link between Sadam Hussein and the atrocity of “9/11”… a link that did not exist other than in the fear filled mind of our then Vice President.
Water boarding is torture. These acts were crimes. Those who committed them are war criminals. Those who directed them, those who conspired to legalize them, and those in positions of authority who were made aware of them and did nothing... are war criminals. We hanged several Japanese soldiers for water boarding following World War II. We established that water boarding was torture!
The list of such criminals apparently includes at least a past Vice President of the United States of America- Dick Cheney, a past Attorney General- John Ashcroft, a past Secretary of Defense- Donald Rumsfeld, and a past Secretary of State- Condoleezza Rice … National Security Advisor to our President at the time. And so many others including, quite possibly, the current Speaker of the House- Nancy Pelosi... who knew and did nothing.
It is incumbent on our current Attorney General to bring this matter to the courts... to indict and try these criminals. Else our current President’s rhetoric about the sanctity of the “rule of law” in our country is just more hot air. I don’t see “Change you can believe in” from our new Administration on this issue! I see "Circle the wagons and keep your heads down."
It does not appear that any real investigation of these crimes will be mounted, much less will any indictments be handed down. And this stain on American honor will never be erased... certainly not by our vaunted system of justice.
Hardly the new image of America we were all hoping for.
