Obama Grants Amnesty to Torturers

Action Alert: Sign our new petition to Congress: No Amnesty for Torturers! 

In response to the lawsuit by the ACLU and CCR, President Obama finally released the infamous torture memos. There were some redactions that will be pored over by bloggers.

But Obama announced that CIA torturers who relied on Justice Department lawyers will not be prosecuted. Worse, they will be defended by Obama's Justice Department in any lawsuits and, if they lose, we the taxpayers will pay the judgments.

Obama's statement said nothing about prosecuting the Justice Department lawyers who authorized torture, so we'll have to wait to learn more. Spanish prosecutors advised against prosecution in Spain, but Judge Garzon could ignore the advice. Presumably Holder pressured Spain, but he may have agreed to a U.S. prosecution instead.

Any decision on prosecution in the U.S. may have to wait for the long-overdue report on the lawyers by the Office of Professional Responsibility. According to the Pentagon Post,

The report may take months to be released because authorities are waiting for comment from some of the three lawyers and many of the issues are highly classified, a department lobbyist told lawmakers recently.

Obama tried to soften the outrage with rhetoric:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution.

But not for accountability or law enforcement.

I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Enforcing laws is not about "laying blame" - it's about enforcing laws. If laws against torture should not be enforced, why should any laws be enforced? Why should Bernie Madoff be prosecuted? Why not let all convicted murderers out of jail?

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.

How can we "come together" when government officials whose salaries we pay can break the law with impunity, including torturing people?

The United States is a nation of laws.

Not if those laws are willfully violated with impunity!

My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws,

Always? Then what about now??? "Those laws" do not only require you to stop torturing, they also require you to prosecute both the torturers and the lawyers who authorized it. 

and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals.

Yeah right.

The obvious response is to demand that Congress prohibit the use of any money to defend torturers or to pay for their judgments. Let's see if anyone in Congress has the guts to propose it.

Update 1: dday notes "indemnifying the CIA personnel who committed the torture because they were acting under what they believed to be a legal basis violates the Nuremberg principles."

Article 7. The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.

Article 8. The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires.

Update 2: I long ago realized the Busheviks regarded George Orwell's "1984" not as a warning, but as a manual. This is straight from "1984": after determining Abu Zubaydah was afraid of insects, they put him in a tiny box with ... insects.

"You would like to place Zubadayah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us he has a fear of insects," the Bush White House said.

"As we understand it, no actually harmful insect will be placed in the box. Thus, though the introduction of an insect may produce trepidation in Zubaydah (which we discuss below), it certainly does not cause physical pain."

But, the memo cautioned, to comply with the law, the CIA "must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain."

After going through several layers of Cheney-chosen bureaucrats and torturers, I have little doubt Zubaydah found himself face to face with a gigantic deadly tarantula.

Update 3: Glenn Greenwald:

Needless to say, I vehemently disagree with anyone -- including Obama -- who believes that prosecutions are unwarranted.  These memos describe grotesque war crimes -- legalized by classic banality-of-evil criminals and ordered by pure criminals -- that must be prosecuted if the rule of law is to have any meaning.  But the decision of whether to prosecute is not Obama's to make; ultimately, it is Holder's and/or a Special Prosectuor's.  More importantly, Obama can only do so much by himself.  The Obama administration should, on its own, initiate criminal proceedings, but the citizenry also has responsibilities here.  These acts were carried out by our Government, and if we are really as repulsed by them as we claim, then the burden is on us to demand that something be done.