"We tortured some folks" is right up there with . . .

[markpkessinger]

70. It isn't just about the word "folks" . . .

If he had followed that statement with a call for prosecutions, I don't think anybody here would have a problem with it (although we might still think it a rather poor choice of words, given what we're talking about here). But to follow that remark with a reminder of what a difficult job the CIA had and telling us not to be "too sanctimonious" about the fact that "we tortured some folks," in effect he made excuses for that torture. Obama's statement differed from Reagan's in that whereas Reagan's statement was an attempt to distance himself from any direct responsibility, Obama's was an attempt to distance both his administration as well as the American public from the responsibility of holding the people who planned, ordered and executed torture to account for their actions. He told us we shouldn't get too sanctimonious about the fact that Americans:

• threatened harm to detainees' families;
  
  
• chained people for days on end with their hands above their heads, while in diapers, forcing them to piss and shit all over themselves;
  
  
• forced people to stand on broken legs and feet for days on end;
  
  
• left people chained to a wall for up to 17 days at a time in a standing position;
  
  
• sexually assaulted and raped people by pumping pureed nuts and hummus their asses, some of them violated to the point of rectal prolapse;
  
  
• poured cold water on a naked detainee and then left him chained to a concrete floor in an unheated cell until he died of hypothermia;

among God knows what other horrors. And despite the President's stated opposition to these tactics, his persistent refusal to pursue prosecutions of these crimes is itself morally reprehensible. What's more, the failure to prosecute will virtually guarantee not only that these crimes might again be committed in the future, but that they will. By merely ending the torture, but refusing to prosecute, the President is condoning that eventuality, whether he admits that to himself or not.