First of all, America has over 2 million criminals in prison right now, more than any other country on the planet. "Reflection" and "witch hunt" may be a defense, but it smacks of elitism in the face of the unforgiving nature our criminal justice system offers regular people.
Second of all, it is not within the authority of President Obama to prevent or cause prosecutions of individual cases. He may set priorities, like fraud, pornography, etc. For the executive branch to direct prosecutions for the Attorney General would be "politicizing" of the Justice Department, something the previous administration was roundly criticized for.
As more and more information comes out, the more disturbing the pattern becomes. The "enhanced interrogation techniques" were derived from communist China capturing and torturing Americans during the Korean conflict to elicit false confessions. Military psychologists, Mitchel and Jessen, used these torture tactics to aide our military in SERE training (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) .
The White House contacted Mitchell after 9/11 and shortly thereafter Mitchell and Jessen quit the military, set up there own little shop of horrors and became contractors for the CIA.
Apparently the torture program began prior to the Justice Departments Office of Legal Council provided legal cover. Prior to that happening the Bush administration needed a work-around of the Geneva Conventions. This was done by dubbing the detainees "enemy combatants", stateless terrorists who were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions, therefore could not benefit from its protections. The Supreme Court later disagreed with this notion.
Reports coming out now claim the "interrogators" were not seeking information about imminent attacks or locations of bin Laden; they were under great pressure from the White House to establish a link between 9/11 and Iraq, of course which none exists.
Abu Zubayda was waterboarded 83 times in August of 2002. An eyebrow is raised when one remembers that on July 23, 2002, British foreign policy aide, Matthew Rycroft penned the infamous Downing Street Memo which stated:
"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. ... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." emphasis added.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March of 2003. The invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003. Gone were the OLC limits on waterboarding of twenty seconds and 2 pints of water. It was replaced by a gallon and a half of water and what must've been an unending duration.
So, we used torture designed by communists to illicit false confessions to "fix the intelligence" around an invasion of Iraq. It was so effective we had to waterboard 2 detainees 266 times.
This doesn't even address the bashing of heads into walls, keeping someone awake for a week, slapping them around. Clearly and beyond reasonable argument we have engaged in torture, which is a war crime. What is most puzzling to me is the insistance of a two-tiered criminal justice system, where regular people enjoy the full benefit from it, but our political elites are protected from it due to weird and Orwellian defenses like "policy differences" and "witch hunts."
Someone should tell Dick Cheney he has the right to remain silent...preferably someone with a badge and handcuffs.
