Saturday, May 16, 2009

Another reason not to prosecute torture - litigation blows

Jeff and that guy who write the thing have captured some of the most important reasons not to prosecute, but may I add another? The Old 97s once sang, "telephones make strangers out of lovers," and that dynamic would also go to work here.

As far as I can tell, we made real advances on torture when John McCain and that excitable sidekick of his Lindsay Graham took up the fight. So now that Congress is investigating the lawyers, not contractors, CIA agents or soldiers, but just the lawyers, who is trying to make hay by fighting the anti-torture side? Lindsay Graham.

My favorite presentation of this debate would be the Democratic congressional leaders to play possum on this and let the Republicans like Graham and Hagel go on TV to argue with Dick Cheney. I understand why the dynamics of Congress don't really allow this to happen, but where we might have developed a national consensus that would keep this kind of thing from happening again because the collective conscience of the country understands that it's either ineffective and thus immoral (my position) or immoral a priori.

Instead, now all we have is an argument.

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