Declassifying Torture Memos
The Obama administration has indicated that they will soon be declassifying and releasing “ugly” torture memos that detail the Bush administrations approach to using water boarding and other coercive measures to extract information from enemy combatants. (The Obama administration also recently announced that they are abandoning the term enemy combatants)
These articles remind me of something that I heard a former Presidential speech writer say at a meeting this past summer. The conversation was off the record, but suffice it to say that the individual is a political legend who suggested that in order to avoid inflaming an already polarized Washington that a President Obama should avoid pressing charges, or even investigating Bush administration abuses. The individual suggested that this was a matter to be deliberated and decided by international courts. I haven’t heard many people echo that sentiment, and while I agree that it’s important to unmask abuses so as to prevent them from being repeated in the future, I also realize that President Obama doesn’t have the political capital, or quite frankly the luxury to make this a center point of his administration. Pundits are already criticizing his administration for taking on too much too quickly, this is such a hot button issue- I just don’t see how this is something that the administration can take on right now.