[President] Obama said that C.I.A. officers who were acting on the Justice Department’s legal advice would not be prosecuted, but he left open the possibility that anyone who acted without legal authorization could still face criminal penalties.That is an astonishing position to take and one that is clearly not in line with Nuremberg Principle IV:
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.Anyone with a conscience should have known that what the Bush Administration was doing was a war crime.
We cannot allow the current position of "it's OK if you were relying on the opinions of one of our scumbag lawyers who we told to justify anything we have told you to do" to stand. Our claim to be a nation of laws is on the line. If we give our own torturers a free pass on this, then we will never have the moral grounds to criticize anyone else for human rights abuses.
It also shows that the conviction of Chuckie Taylor on charges of torture was the height of hypocrisy, for we are going to let our own torturers escape any accountability for their crimes.
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