Not mincing words, the editorial says,
“Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality: In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like “rectal feeding,” scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of ‘suspected hypothermia.’ These are, simply, crimes.”
While noting it’s “hard to imagine” a criminal investigation of a former president, and not expecting the current president to authorize one, the NYT suggested probing the conduct of “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,” as well as “many more names that could be considered,” including the CIA official who ordered torture videotapes destroyed, the psychologists who “devised the torture regime,” and CIA employees who carried it out.
Since taking office, President Obama has tried to skirt the issue by urging the nation to “look forward, not backward.” Many progressives and liberals, myself included, who feel deeply disturbed by what our government secretly did in our name have looked on this as political cowardice, in some ways worse than Gerald Ford’s refusal to allow Richard Nixon to be prosecuted for his abuse of power and crimes in office. I agree with the NYT’s rationale for not letting the Bush torturers off the hook, which isn’t about partisanship:
“Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate’s report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions.”
Unfortunately, “the nation” — if that’s taken to mean ordinary citizens — have no say in this. Only one person, or at most two, possess absolute power over this decision: The president and attorney general. The incoming new attorney general is in a tough spot, because appointing a special prosecutor will be highly controversial, and will subject her to intense partisan attacks from Republicans. That’s probably asking for too much unless she has cover from the president. So the ball is really in President Obama’s court.
When he ran for president, Senator Obama promised us “hope and change.” It’s time for him to make good on those words. As a second-term lame duck saddled with a Republican Congress, he has stands to lose little or nothing politically by acting on the petition being submitted to his administration today by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch. At the same time, his legacy and place in history are at stake. This petition should prompt positive action by him, and this editorial plea, expressing as it does the conscience of the thinking elements of our nation, should be taken forward by the man we elected to set things right again.