No Accountability for Torture - New York Review of Books

[gratuitous]

2. If this was my case

I'd almost be inclined to take this to the Supremes, to see what sort of legal pretzels the so-called Justices would contort themselves into to excuse crimes against humanity. As long as so many people feel so very good about the results we're getting right now (Justice!), who cares what a bunch of quaint old documents say?

It took a hell of a long time for the Supreme Court to get around to deciding that the tactics of the Red Scare were unconstitutional. By that time, the Scare had served its purpose, and subversive ideas like "share and share alike" were cut out of our national discourse and popular entertainments. Extremism in defense of extremist policies has never been recognized as a vice in the United States.