I’m happy, of course, that the New York Times came out today advocating for the prosecution of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and those in their administration responsible for green-lighting the use of torture against those thought to have knowledge of terrorist activities directed at the United States. I can’t help but wonder, however, how much more impactful this might have been had it taken place a decade ago, before the 2004 election. I know that the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture was just issued, but does it really say anything that we didn’t already know a long, long time ago? Haven’t we known for well over ten years now that the Bush administration violated federal law prohibiting torture, as well as the international Convention Against Torture, which we ratified in 1994? Maybe the new Senate report makes it official, but wasn’t there enough evidence during the Bush Cheney administration to at least suggest that a formal inquiry might be in order?
I’m glad that the folks at the New York Times are now attempting to get on the right side of history, but I’m never going to forget the role they played in selling us the Iraq War and everything that went along with it.
Here’s a clip from the Times piece, for those of you who haven’t read it.
…The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch are to give Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. a letter Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears increasingly to be “a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes.”
The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.
But 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…