Obama quietly warned us not to expect immediate torture prosecution

[Bluerthanblue]

before he was even elected:

(From a Salon article last summer)

.......Aug. 4, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- On the campaign trail in April, Barack Obama was asked whether, if elected, he would prosecute Bush administration officials for establishing torture as American policy. The candidate demurred. "If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," he said. But he quickly added, "I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of the Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems to solve."

This issue is something Obama has clearly put some thought and planning into:

While there are certainly participants in these discussions who believe that top-level administration officials deserve to be hauled before a judge, even the harshest critics of the current administration's torture policies don't think there will be an immediate effort by the next president to prosecute anyone from the Bush administration. "I don't sense the political appetite for it," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, who is involved in the informal discussions about what Obama could do about investigating torture. "I don't think the next president will do that no matter who he is."....

...successful prosecutions would be tough anyway. The Justice Department approved the abuse and Congress changed the War Crimes Act in 2006 to make prosecutions more difficult...

But the avenues of investigation being discussed don't necessarily rule out at least an attempt at prosecuting Bush officials at some later date. The nonpartisan presidential commission that Malinowski and other people involved in the discussions are advocating would have considerable power, granted by Congress, to force cooperation. The commission would ultimately deliver recommendations to the president that would include.....whether or not Cheney deserves that walk up the courthouse steps.

The first order of business, however, would be learning the truth. "I think a lot of us feel that the American people are entitled to the whole truth,"...." people are entitled to from an official body that has access to the classified documents that makes as much public as it can,"....

The commission would focus strictly on detention, torture and extraordinary rendition, or the practice of spiriting detainees to a third country for abusive interrogations. The panel would focus strictly on these abuses, leaving out any other allegedly illegal activities during the Bush administration, such as domestic spying. .........(more)



PLEASE- take the time to read the whole article at:


http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/08/04/obama/