American War Crimes

I asked Buzzy Krongard, the CIA's former executive director, if he thought waterboarding and painful stress positions were torture:

"Well, let's put it this way, it is meant to make him as uncomfortable as possible. So I assume for, without getting into semantics, that's torture. I'm comfortable with saying that," he explained.

Now we have what can be called "an admission against interest", which is probably admissible in court. From there, we can apply the Yamashita Doctrine and get all of them. For you know that as soon as some of those folks are charged, they'll roll over faster than a lap dog seeking a belly rub.

The CIA tortured people. That was done under the express approval of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Bush's National Security Council.*

My bet is that we are going to take a page out of the Japanese War Crimes Manual and pretend, as a nation, that it never ever happened.

But we all know that it did. We know that there were high-level Administration officials, right up to Dick Cheney and David Addington, who were ecstatic at the idea of torturing people, and who pushed for the use of increasingly brutal methods.

And unless we face up to it and really prosecute those responsible,** it will happen again.
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* What, you really thought that the Abu Ghraib soldiers came up with the idea of torturing people on their own?
** Not like the way that the Obama Administration has refused to hold the banksters responsible for wrecking the economy.