Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: December 2014 Archives

If we don't invalidate "horrifically faulty" Justice Department opinions, future lawyers will follow suit.

http://s279.photobucket.com/user/davidckitchen/media/6a00e552b9224688340120a8609668970b-.jpg.html 

War Crimes Case Filed in Germany

The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down...

any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

Berkeley Marine Corps Recruitment Center, January 2008.

Photo by Felix, exclusive to World Can't Wait.

The debate over whether torture "worked" is beside the point.

The law doesn't say that torture is a crime unless it produces useful intelligence, any more than it says that murder is a crime unless it is profitable. It simply says that torture is a crime, always and in any circumstances. As it should.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the American legal system to punish the government officials responsible for the U.S. torture program. The greatest civil rights triumphs of the twentieth century were accomplished by principled activism to raise public consciousness about injustices.

Release of the Senate committee's report provides a rich opportunity to challenge the practice of State torture and the legitimacy of institutions that sanction its use.

We Can't "Move On"

Despite Obama's clear policy ban on torture, and the clear prohibitions in US law, there is little to stop a future president, in the wake an extraordinary national security event like the September 11 attacks, from unearthing unethical lawyers to revoke Obama's 2009 executive order, throw established law out the window, revive the twisted reasoning behind the old torture memos, and fashion a new "neo-torture memo" or other legal document to justify the CIA's old methods again...

why, if the tactics were illegal, is no one being prosecuted for them?

This is a point that UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism Ben Emmerson specifically made last week following the release of the report. In a statement, Emmerson said, "The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability."

see Torture Impunity and Police Shootings

Prosecute John Yoo, Says Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

One of two psychologists paid millions for designing the post-9/11 program of brutal interrogations defends the treatment of al-Qaida detainees. "It's a lot more humane, even if you are going to subject them to harsh techniques, to question them while they are still alive, than it is to kill them and their children and their neighbors with a drone."

Mr. Bush and his advisers have been largely quiet about the Senate report until now, and former intelligence officials worried whether the Bush team would defend them. Some former administration officials privately encouraged the president and his top advisers to use the report to disclaim responsibility for the interrogation program on the grounds that they were not kept fully informed...

Former President Stands Behind His C.I.A. Buddies