Saturday, July 11, 2009

What will Holder do?

US Attorney General Eric Holder is considering whether or not to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture violations.

The problem with going ahead with such an investigation, is that if it results in prosecutions, it allows bonafide terrorists to claim that the US violated the laws and therefore evidence must be thrown out. This is a practical consideration, to be sure.

But in the longer scale of time, if we do not prosecute those who violated the US Constitution, we risk giving relief to future Administrations to violate the US Constitution at will.

That being said, Dick Cheney professes that the torture was necessary to extract information that prevented attacks. Curiously, Dick didn't explain how frequently torture FAILED to produce actionable information. And, if Dick was correct - that actionable intel came from torture, then what does that say about the quality of our abilities of spying? Is Dick saying that all those illegal wiretaps, in effect, weren't necessary after all?

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