Stuart Taylor: Sure, we tortured, but those responsible have suffered enough -- they've been picketed!
September 14, 2009 11:04 am ET by Jamison Foser
National Journal's Stuart Taylor (whose legal analysis is, quite inexplicably, taken very seriously by the Beltway media) acknowledges that the Bush administration tortured detainees, but argues that those responsible have already "suffered" enough for their misdeeds. See, they've been called names, and their public appearances have been picketed:
Of course, when all is said and done, there is little doubt that some CIA detainees were tortured. This is a stain on our nation's honor that should never be repeated. But the responsibility was so widely diffused, across such a large number of honorably motivated officials who tried (and sometimes failed) to stay within the law, that it makes no sense to seek to atone for the nation's sins by singling out individuals for bar discipline or other punishment.
This is especially true when those individuals have already suffered greatly from being trashed as "war criminals," picketed at public appearances, stalked by grandstanding Spanish judges, and otherwise harassed across the country and around the globe.
Sure, John Yoo said it was fine with him if George W. Bush wanted to order interrogators to crush a child's testicles. But the man has been picketed! What more must he endure? Leave him alone!
Oh, and Taylor worries that a torture "truth commission" might become "adversarial":
The sort of fact-finding "truth commission" that many have advocated could report on what was done and the lessons learned -- although it could do more harm than good if such a panel conducted the sort of adversarial hearings that would become a public circus.
Yeah, we wouldn't want anyone to raise their voice to a guy who said it is OK to crush a child's testicles. That would be ... Rude. Or something.
Once again: Who cares what Stuart Taylor thinks?
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You see, Mr. Taylor, this is exactly the kind of turn-the-perpetrator-into-the-victim argument that the liberals used to get pounded for by the conservatives. And here the conservatives are, dusting off an argument they once loathed (and still do if comes to minorities or the poor), and using it to defend 'patriots' who forever besmirched the honor of America by torturing people. Further, they tortured, not to stop some ticking clock scenario, but because they wanted somebody, ANYBODY, to say that there were links between 9-11 and Iraq, or al Qaeda and Iraq. Anything to justify a completely illegal and unjust war. A war which, in case anyone is keeping track, cost twice as much as picking up the tab for the entire nation's health insurance, and from which we as a people derived absolutely no benefit.
This is the sole gold nugget of wisdom in this asshat's entire river of sewage.
And the only reasonable conclusion one can reach upon accepting the premise of this lone piece of gold is that it is exactly for this reason that we must convene a committe, let them have their hearings and then PROSECUTE THOSE RESPONSIBLE.
We will never regain the moral high ground, and never again be the greatest country in the world, or indeed even a great country unitl we do.
See, this statement really bothers me. Do we know that CIA officials "tried...to stay within the law"?!?!? Are we simply, perhaps, guessing that maybe they sorta, kinda tried to "to stay within the law"? I'd be happy to go with the statement that CIA personnel "tried...to stay within the law" if reporters would go to the trouble of providing, y'know, evidence instead of just making wild-arse guesses and proof-free presumptions to that effect.