FindLaw
November 17, 2010
Last week saw a few more steps toward the banalization of torture. On Monday night, it was former President George W. Bush on television, acknowledging his personal responsibility for ordering the waterboarding of Al Qaeda suspects in CIA custody.
On Tuesday, it was the Department of Justice, announcing that Acting US Attorney John Durham would not pursue criminal charges for the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the abusive interrogation of terrorism suspects.
And on Wednesday, it was the op-ed page of the New York Times, with an apparently unrelated item: an opinion piece about an arms control treaty currently awaiting ratification by the Senate. A co-author of the piece was John Yoo, who, during his tenure with the Bush administration at the Justice Department, was the author of legal memos purporting to justify torture.
Taken together, these episodes send an ugly but resounding message: Senior U.S. officials face no real consequences for the crime of torture. Not only do they seem immune from prosecution in a court of law, they are even welcome on the op-ed pages of elite publications.
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