Dismembering Justice

In my last article on the torture conducted by the Bush administration, I may have left out another important reason for a full and complete reckoning for all involved at every level of government. It was in my last article I explained why I understand that Obama won't prosecute the agents that carried out the torture. To reiterate, we need our agents in the field to be able to do their jobs without worrying about the outcome of the next election and whether their actions will become unpopular.

However, of course that was the plan of the Bush administration all along. It now appears that from the beginning they planned on denying any responsibility for the torture by arguing that they had only asked how far they could go legally and it was the nefarious Department of Justice that told them to torture. Though, the new information seems to indicate that those lawyers were pressured to produce opinions that indicated torture was legal.

Given the amount the DOJ was politicized by the Bush administration it is highly unlikely that any advisory opinion that emanated from that DOJ was free of undue influence. Also, why would the DOJ have generated this opinion if it werent asked? And why would the question have been asked if it werent abundantly clear what the "correct" answer was?

Though if you believe the story being sold to us by the former administration through MSM is true, that every lawyer "consulted" by the Bush administration agreed that the techniques were legal, that does not make it so. The DOJ does not make the law. Congress makes the law. And Congress has made torture illegal. As I have explained in my previous article, waterboarding and the other techniques used were and still are torture.