A diarist wrote a very well organized position on why torture should not be prosecuted. I disagree with him on virtually every point. He says that it is politically inexpedient, I say it is morally necessary. He appeals to the past, I say we live in the present. He says torture in US prisons negates torture by the CIA, I say both must end.
The American Prison and the Normalization of Torture
The American prison system in practice is disgusting. It must be changed.
One of the things that makes me a bit angry is the message these prosecutions send to minority groups: Torture that happens to you at the hands of the Governor and Warden is not that big a deal. But torture that happens to suspected terrorists at the hands of the Bush Administration is a very big deal that must be eliminated from our society.
- Torture in American prison is not a matter of government policy.
- Those who torture in American prisons should be stopped and prosecuted.
- Do you think that we will help the minority groups by doing nothing? That makes no sense.
- Prosecuting this torture can lead to changes & prosecutions in prison torture.
The President's legislative agenda is his mandate to govern. This is what he was elected to do.
He was also elected to serve the office of President, which include things beyond his "agenda", even if it's politically inexpedient.
He did, however, campaign very aggressively to close Guantanmo and end torture. This he has done by executive order.
Executive order is not enough to end torture, because it can easily be restarted by the next president with a different opinion.
I've heard it argued that should the president choose not to investigate or prosecute torture, that this would be tantamount to lawbreaking. I have discredited this argument legally.
Link or reference is where? This says that Law requires that torture be prosecuted.
shit happens
I don't think I need to respond to this one.
I believe that from a legal point of view, there is unlikely to be a conviction.
You say it would be a waste of resource to try when a conviction is unlikely. I say we must, morally and legally, try them.
One objection to this decision is that it gives those who may have committed torture a "just following orders" defense.
This defence is specifically not valid in so much case law that I can't understand you are raising it. In addition, the torture is so obviously wrong that the argument "I thought it was legal" does not hold up.
First, I believe the public will align themselves with the line officers long before they align themselves with those who were totured. As an example, Khaled Sheikh Muhammed murderd reporter Daniel Pearl.
Then both he and those who tortured him are guilty.
And I believe, as I've stated, that implications of a torturers acquittal are profound and dangerous, especially as we try to exit Iraq.
I think it's hard to imagine the opinion of the world sinking lower. There would be at least the understanding that we tried.
Nothing is so serious, other than war, that forces us to stop what were doing, throw all caution aside and deal with it.
If you believe that war is more important than torture, then you I most whole-heartedly disagree with you. Let a thousand be killed in a war, but just one tortured, and the torture is the worse crime.
Had Lincoln decided to prosecute and hang the rebels for treason, as was custom, he would be regarded today as a brutal, genocidal dictator.
As they say, that was then, and this is now. We live in the present, and in the present, different decisions would have been necessary and made. The Geneva Conventions did not exist in that day. Live was nasty, brutish, and short. Civilization has changed, and the USA must also change.