Prosecute Them?

Shortly after I finished that last post I checked my e-mail and found this.

David-

Please sign the petition by Daily Kos and Demand Progress demanding accountability for the just-revealed torture by the CIA.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released the CIA torture report — after over 170,000 people signed our petition demanding they do so — and the details make us sick to our stomachs.

Simply put, the United States has tortured people — meaning “waterboarding” and much more — in direct violation of its own War Crimes Act. And it violates the U.N. Convention Against Torture — which President Ronald Reagan signed.

We cannot allow what happened in the Bush-Cheney Administration to happen again.

Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a special prosecutor to hold accountable those who committed such crimes, and the Obama Administration must dismiss CIA head John Brennan and all employees at the CIA who were involved.

But despite his purported opposition to torture, President Obama isn’t going create meaningful repercussions for it unless we force him to:

Sign the petition by Daily Kos and Demand Progress: Demand accountability. Dismiss and prosecute all those at the CIA responsible for authorizing and overseeing the implementation of torture.

Thanks.

-Demand Progress

As I said before, it is unfortunate that such things as enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture if you will, are used by agencies of the United States government. In an ideal world, no one working for the US government would ever use such techniques nor would they be necessary. We do not live in that ideal world. In the real world, there are people who want to do us harm. I am not greatly concerned about the civil rights of such people nor do I care very much for their reasons for wanting to harm us. It may well be that they have legitimate grievances against US policies. I do not care. Whatever reasons they may have do not justify the murder of innocent Americans. I am not willing to risk the lives of my fellow Americans just to satisfy critics who will never be satisfied. If torture is at all effective at gaining information that will prevent another 9/11 than it can and should be used. I am also not willing to see the people tasked with preventing another such atrocity prosecuted for trying to protect us.

Torture is bad, there is no doubt about it, but we are not always given a clear choice between good and bad. More often the choice is between less bad and more bad. I can think of worse things than torturing suspected terrorists. If the people at Demand Progress and Daily Kos believe that the use of torture somehow causes the US to lose the moral high ground (as if these people on the left will ever concede that the US has ever held the high ground) perhaps they need to be reminded of just who our enemies are and what they can do.