The Reign In Spain

[FOTD]

U.S. future depends on torture accountability
Olbermann: We cannot let mistakes of the past haunt our future


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30254776/


"We "moved forward" with Germany in the reconstruction of Europe after the First World War.
Nobody even arrested the German Kaiser, let alone conducted war crimes trials then. And 19 years later, there was an indescribably more evil Germany and a more heart-rending Second World War.

We "moved forward" with the trusts of the early 1900s. And today, we are at the mercy of corporations too big to fail. We "moved forward" with the Palmer Raids and got McCarthyism.
And we "moved forward" with McCarthyism and got Watergate. We "moved forward" with Watergate and junior members of the Ford administration realized how little was ultimately at risk.

They grew up to be Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. But, Mr. President, when you say we must "come together on behalf of our common future" you are entirely correct. We must focus on getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past.

That means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush administration's torture of prisoners, even if the results are nominal punishments, or merely new laws. Your only other option is to let this set and fester indefinitely. Because, Sir, some day there will be another Republican president, or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country's moral force. And he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush. Or what you did not do.

And he will see precedent. Or as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time. Prosecute, Mr. President. Even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good for generations unborn.  Merely by acting, you will deny a further wrong — that this construction will enter the history books: Torture was legal. It worked. It saved the country."

[FOTD]

NYT Editorial Board Calls for Impeachment of Federal Judge Bybee, Appointed by Bush and One of the Torture Memos Authors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun1.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1240155046-5J29R+AMcnXuOq2ygemskw

"After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability."