Dan Froomkin with some news that is no big shock to some of us:
By this point, there really should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that torture was widely used during the last administration — and that nothing like that should ever happen again.
The new, comprehensive report out today from an august, bipartisan commission goes a long way toward making that abundantly, authoritatively clear, laying the blame fully at the feet of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other top officials.
But the reality is: That’s old news. What’s new and disturbing and important about the report from the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment is how it calls attention to the absurd reality that we, as a country, are actually still actually arguing about any of this.
And for that, the report lays the blame fully at the feet of the current administration, for covering up what happened and stifling any sort of national conversation on the topic — and the media, for splitting the difference between the facts and the plainly specious argument made by torture regime’s architects that what occurred should be defined as something other than what it so obviously was.
The report points out, as I have in the past, that neither Obama nor Congress have done a thing to make sure that, the next time a perceived emergency comes up, some other president or vice president won’t decide to torture again.
Obama’s policy of “looking forward instead of looking backward,” in this light, is exposed as a cover-up that is actually holding the country back from a crucial period of self-understanding, and growth.
There’s also a matter of law. That U.S. officials involved with detention in the CIA’s black sites committed war crimes and violated interntional law, which the report concludes to be self-evident, isn’t something Obama is allowed to ignore.
It actually violates the U.S.’ legal obligations under the international Convention Against Torture, which requires each country to “[c]riminalize all acts of torture, attempts to commit torture, or complicity or participation in torture,” and “proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.”
“The United States cannot be said to have complied,” the report concludes, noting:
No CIA personnel have been convicted or even charged for numerous instances of torture in CIA custody — including cases where interrogators exceeded what was authorized by the Office of Legal Counsel, and cases where detainees were tortured to death. Many acts of unauthorized torture by military forces have also been inadequately investigated or prosecuted.
So it’s not just Bush and Cheney who violated international law; now it’s Obama, too.
Oh, dear, no paid foreign speeches for Obama in his post-presidency?