First, Second and Third: Kill All The Lawyers
I don't have much to add to the horrible reality of the CIA memos released yesterday, confirming what most folks knew already: The Bush Administration looked for justification to use practices on prisoners that we decry as torture on other nations. Indeed, one of the memos ends with this simple but horrifying note:
We recognize that as a matter of diplomacy, the United States may for various reasons in various circumstances call another nation to account for practices that may in some respects resemble conduct in which the United States might in some circumstances engage, covertly or otherwise.
In other words, yeah, we knew what we were doing was torture AS WE DESCRIBED IT, but no worries if we're doing it, cause we're the good guys!
Apparently, President Obama and AG Eric Holder have now put the country in grave danger by not only releasing these but not redacting much at all in these memos (and good on them for that), to which I say, bullcrap.
I mentioned to a friend of mine a few months back that Bush and Cheney could and should be held accountable for war crimes, and he laughed me off as hysterical. These memos prove that Bush and Cheney REQUESTED legal cover for these despicable acts, and worse yet, they got them. That's clearly not doing one's job as a good lawyer. As my increasingly favorite political blog, The Anonymous Liberal puts it:
As I've said many times here before, the most culpable parties in this whole disgusting affair are the lawyers. Their job was to stand up for the rule of law, to tell the Dick Cheneys of the world that what they wanted to do was clearly illegal. They didn't do that. Indeed, they went to elaborate lengths to give their legal blessing to conduct they had to have known was illegal.
Chief among these lawyers is John Yoo, who UC Berkeley inexplicably retained with tenure after this horror show. He is the one who called the Geneva Convention "quaint," and enabled these actions by letting those who inflicted these practices know that it was "legal." Time to pay the piper, Yoo. What scum. So glad they're not in charge anymore.
