United Liberty

The OLC torture memos are causing ceaseless amounts of distress across the blogosphere. For those who have trouble imagining the efficiency of bureaucracy in carrying out evil, the memos prove an exquisite reminder.

Current Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement for the Obama administration claiming that ‘It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.’

I disagree entirely. The Nuremberg precedent should not apply only to Germans with moustaches; it should also apply to officials and government employees in the land of the free and the home of the Red Sox. CIA employees who used torture should be punished by the law. And the members of the Bush administration who crafted the documents allowing torture to squeeze through as a technicality should also be punished by law. If we live in a country that claims to operate under the rule of law, as opposed to the rule of man, the OLC memos provide a clear case in which the law should be applied to prevent further degradation and official disrespect for the law.

But what does everyone else think about the OLC memos?

• Andrew Sullivan was horrified, bringing Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” to bear on the question of moral culpability.
• Digby felt like “vomiting”.
• Yglesias called the memos “chilling reading”.
• Kevin Drum felt “ill”.
• Craig Crawford thinks the Bush administration “needed a shredder”.
• John Hinderaker was impressed by “the concern that is shown for the health and well-being of the detainees”.
• Hugh Hewitt thinks everyone is blowing the torture stuff out of proportion when what is truly astounding is (get this) the “hypocrisy” of the legislators on the Hill. Only an intern could make such naive remarks.
• Glenn Greenwald believes citizens must push for “the law to be applied”.
• Dday criticizes the Obama administration for ignoring the Nuremberg precedent in granting immunity to certain members of the CIA who acted in accordance to orders.
• Steve Benen says criminal charges should be pursued against Bush-buds who sanctioned the torture.
• Firedoglake created a petition.
• Jeff Emmanuel refuses to call “torture” what he experienced during fraternity rush, military training, and other life moments.
• Carol Platt Liebau thinks releasing the torture memos will have “adverse effects on our national security”. As if everyone in the Middle East isn’t already quite familiar with the US policy on torture. As if the only people in the world who aren’t familiar with this policy don’t live right smack in the middle of it.
• Andy McCarthy prefers secrets.
• Ed Morrissey makes a good point: “Bybee and the OLC were asked what interrogators could do within the law, and instead the OLC reverse-engineered a legal opinion to allow them to violate it. I understand why they did, but it still violated the statute. That’s what was wrong with John McCain’s assertion that a president could just break the law and hope Congress justified it later, rather than rewrite the statutes to make plain what could be done in the ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario. The law is supposed to hold all people equally accountable. If we foresee a need to work outside the law, then change the law to make sure it covers those situations.”
• Steve Hynd makes a sound point about the missing discussion of sensory deprivation techniques.
• Experimental Theology delves deeper into Arendt’s “banality of evil” for answers, and better questions.
• Obsidian Wings puts the torture in perspective with actual physical evaluations of the victims made by physicians.