Friday, December 19, 2008

Deterring Torture Through the Law

By Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern
December 19, 2008

“First, let’s kill all the lawyers” may have made sense in that Shakespearian scene, but there is a far simpler solution to the legal ambiguities regarding what to do now about the torture approved by the administration of George W. Bush. Perhaps this variant: First, let’s have the lawyers review their notes from Criminal Justice 101.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Bill Bergman said...

THanks for the great essay. Regarding intent, we know a little, thanks to people like you, but we don't know enough. That's why an independent prosecutor and/or commission are needed.

Given the known disinformation that torture can produce, one question I have regarding intent is -- was torture used to deliberately elicit disinformation?

I don't know the torture history very well, thankfully. Are there past cases where torture is used to try to build a false trail of evidence?

In either case, 9/11 or Iraq, if indeed torture was used to deliberately produce bad information, the consequences would be hard to swallow.

Sat Dec 20, 04:29:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

A rightfully disgruntled Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush to protest the wanton torture and killing of his countrymen, and gets tortured himself, and may get seven years in jail.

But Bush and Cheney, those purveyors of death and destruction expect to get off without penalty.

The injustice and hypocrisy is reaching a tipping point which Mr. Obama, as Predident, will ignore at his peril.

Sun Dec 21, 08:01:00 PM 2008

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