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sophiaserpentiaBy announcing that the administration refuses to hold CIA torturers accountable for their crimes against humanity, the Obama Administration has sealed the deal on legitimizing torture by the police state. In fact, what Obama and Holder have done goes far beyond simply letting torturers off the hook -- they have, in tandem with the Bush administration, constructed a framework to legitimize torture by any modern state.
There you have it: the justice department issues memos outlining the ways in which crimes can be committed, and those working on behalf of the government can be absolved of accountability if they were following the advice of those memos. The "I was just following orders" defense.
Furthermore, in making this announcement, the Obama administration has also made it much harder to hold the authors of the torture memos accountable, because it will now be much harder to compel CIA torturers to testify. If they know they won't be charged with a crime, there is no incentive for them to turn state's evidence.
While i'm glad to hear that the president is not planning to authorize any more torture at present, they have set an extremely bad precedent that essentially lets the government (and any other nation who wants to use the same logic) rewrite the rules on torture whenever they please, without fear of reprisal or accountability.
So fuck you very much Eric Holder for making George W. Bush's destruction of civil rights a mission accomplished.
At this point i want to hear what the administration plans to do to prevent this from happening again, and how it intends to answer charges from the international community that the US is out of compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture.
Even as they exposed new details of the interrogation program, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder offered the first definitive assurance that the CIA officials who were involved are in the clear, as long as their actions were in line with the legal advice at the time. ... "It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said.
There you have it: the justice department issues memos outlining the ways in which crimes can be committed, and those working on behalf of the government can be absolved of accountability if they were following the advice of those memos. The "I was just following orders" defense.
Furthermore, in making this announcement, the Obama administration has also made it much harder to hold the authors of the torture memos accountable, because it will now be much harder to compel CIA torturers to testify. If they know they won't be charged with a crime, there is no incentive for them to turn state's evidence.
While i'm glad to hear that the president is not planning to authorize any more torture at present, they have set an extremely bad precedent that essentially lets the government (and any other nation who wants to use the same logic) rewrite the rules on torture whenever they please, without fear of reprisal or accountability.
So fuck you very much Eric Holder for making George W. Bush's destruction of civil rights a mission accomplished.
At this point i want to hear what the administration plans to do to prevent this from happening again, and how it intends to answer charges from the international community that the US is out of compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture.
