Torture is Now Legal

No, I cut President Obama no slack whatsoever on this. If he restores American democracy as thoroughly as FDR did, this will be his Japanese Detention - the mistake that forever stains his legacy.

But let's not forget that this is a failure to prosecute crimes committed by the Bush/Cheney war criminals - conceived by them, approved by them, bragged about by them.

Let's not forget that the failure to prosecute comes in a poisoned atmosphere of borderline-treasonous obstruction of the president by the very party that established the torture regime.

Let's not forget to add "legal torture" to the legacy of the republican party's pathological racism.

 

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money 

That’s the effect of the Obama administration’s final determination that no official, high or petty, should be held accountable for the Bush administration’s institutionalized torture regime. Laws on the books are beside the point if it’s clear they can be violated with impunity. And while there are very real barriers to successful prosecutions that are beyond the administration’s control, the idea that there wasn’t a single torture case that was as worthy of resources as, say, steroid witch hunt cases that wouldn’t be worth pursuing even if the government actually had a case is not plausible.

Update: [PC] Related thoughts.