Posted by Adam Blickstein
U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Lee Gunn (Ret.). President, The American Security Project: I'm very pleased that the President and the Attorney General have released the interrogation memos this afternoon.
"After a career serving in the military, I believe that the men and women who serve America, in uniform and out, always deserve orders from their Commander in Chief that are clear, lawful, and correct. In my view the opinions voiced in these memos contributed to placing our people who serve on the front lines in added danger: if Americans were captured, the risk of abuse by our enemy increased; if Americans were tasked with the "enhanced" interrogation of detainees, their legal liability increased; if Americans were caused to violate their country's values and their own personal principles to extract information harshly, their souls and consciences were at risk. No Commander in Chief has the right to put the people who serve America in these positions.
"The Obama Administration has once again demonstrated the value of transparency in dealing with difficult issues and its confidence that the American people will evaluate the choices made by the previous administration fairly and objectively. I applaud their release of these memos and their commitment to avoiding these horrible mistakes in the future."
Stephen Abraham, LTC, US Army Res. (Ret.), from 2004-2005, served in the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants at Guantanamo Bay. "The release of these memos confirms that the Constitution, American values, the rule of law, and ultimately the American people were each victims of the dubious legal decisions emanating from the Bush administration's Justice Department. Rather than honor laws that respect both our history and our obligations as a nation amongst many, laws that have successfully protected us from threat while preserving our human values, the Bush administration decided to place politics and expediently misguided policies over law and morality. In the end, this left us more vulnerable, not more secure.
"The release of these memos that provided legal cover for the use of torture ultimately do not reveal any new facts about torture nor do they not reveal new facts about the legal arguments made. In both regards, the subject of those memos has been the subject of public dialogue for many years.
"Crucially, it is in the disclosure itself of those memos today that affirms America is a nation of laws and that no man may place himself above those laws, no matter what the cause."
Sarah Mendelson, Director, Human Rights and Security Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies: "The release of these memos, like the Executive Orders released January 23, demonstrates that the policies and priorities of President Obama stand in stark contrast to counterterrorism approach the Bush administration pursued. Those policies damaged our reputation, served as recruitment tools for those who wished us harm, and enabled dictators across the world. The United States now has the opportunity to demonstrate that we can protect our nation and prosecute those who commit crimes without casting aside the Constitution and rule of law.
"This is also an opportunity for the United States to further expand and utilize the professionals trained in non-coercive techniques of interrogation who can be deployed at a moment's notice.
"The bottom line is the Obama administration has affirmed in its actions today what the President said in his inaugural address: that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."
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