The Obama administration finally released the last four secret torture memos from the Bush administration that clearly show the Bush administration approved the use of torture.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html
Obama then announced that “nothing will be gained” by prosecuting people who committed war crimes… because… they… were… Americans.
“Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.”
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-special-comment-future-us-depend
I can’t tell if Obama is naive and thinks that Bush was a singular bad apple the likes of which America will never see again. (Bush will not be the last tyrant America will have to suffer. Future tyrants will see Bush’s ability to get away with 8 years of torture and take that as a green light to more tyranny.) I can’t tell if Obama is avoiding a political storm and merely hopes that it all magically goes away. (It won’t go away. Ignoring it will only make it worse.) But what I realized is that it doesn’t matter what Obama’s motivations are. What matters are his actions, his deeds. And his deeds are that of a man who is suggesting that we should not prosecute war criminals because they happen to be American.
Glenn Greenwald goes into the legal details here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/17/prosecutions/index.html
To quote General Pace, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8678
“It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral.”
Pace was saying this to Iraqi commanders before the US invaded, but it applies to everyone in uniform.
Anyone remember Abu Graib? The torture of prisoners by American soldiers? Ring a bell? Pfc. Lynndie England defended her part in the crimes committed at Abu Graib by invoking the “we were just following orders” defense. http://hnn.us/articles/5378.html
“We think everything was justified because we were instructed to do this and to do that.”
Abu Graib is not a precedence that America wants to continue with the crimes at Guantanamo and the crimes at the American base in Bagram, Afghanistan. We do not want to be a nation that acts solely on the moral compass handed to us by our superiors. We cannot.
And we become complicit if we allow our country to do that without strong vocal protest for justice, for transparancy, for rule of law, for democracy, for freedom, and for liberty. Because what is liberty if it is solely what our politicians decide they are willing to grant us? What is justice if it is solely what our politicians tell us? What is democracy if it is solely what our incumbent political leaders say it is, which they generally say is more of them.
Democracy only exists as long as it is sourced by “we the people”. If we sit back and allow this grand injustice to pass without comment, then we are no longer a democracy. We’re a volunteer tyranny.
Write your representatives and give them an earful. Let them know that Americans still demand rule of law, due process, and that criminals be prosecuted even if they were working for the government at the time. Tell them “I was just following orders” isn’t good enough. And tell them that the people in the Bush administration who gave the orders that others followed should be prosecuted first.
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