Another letter to President Obama re Prosecution for Torture

[Bonobo]

This was written by my best friend. I thought it was so good that I had to share. Please use freely as a basis for your own letter if you wish.
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President Obama,
According to an article in the New York Times today (4/23), you were quoted as telling congressional leaders that you do "not want a special inquiry" (into Bush Administration torture issues), which you said "would potentially steal time and energy" from ambitious policy priorities, and "could mushroom into a wider distraction by looking back at other aspects of the Bush years".
Mr. President, I, like millions of other Americans, vigorously supported you during the campaign. In my case, I actively campaigned for you and donated hundreds of dollars to your campaign despite my own budgetary challenges. I did all of this because of your PLEDGE to deliver "change we can believe in".
Your recent ambivalence regarding holding the Bush Administration accountable for their criminal, deceitful and ineffective policies of torture is extremely disappointing.
We CANNOT achieve the "change" you promised in a robust way until we fully understand and confront the profound CRIMES of the previous administration. In order to "look forward" to a future in which we can rest assured that our government will not desecrate the law of the land in such an egregious fashion as was done by Bush et. al., we MUST "look back" with clarity and identify wrongs and make appropriate amends. Short of this, we accede tacit approval to these past crimes, and imply that similar crimes will be permitted in the future.
To suggest that, irrespective of the other challenges that now face the country, fulfilling your oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States by honoring the law of the land would amount to a "distraction" is not acceptable and would amount to an abrogation of your sacred responsibilities. You have rightly asserted in the past that an effective president and effective government must be able to address multiple challenges in parallel. It is now time for you demonstrate that you can truly do this.
On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee reported that a US Army Major testified that interrogators were charged with using torture tactics to extract evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, presumably to build a corrupt case for an illegal war on another nation, albeit one with a government that did not respect human rights or international law. In my opinion, these actions under the Bush Administration amount to TREASON and crimes against humanity.
If your administration does not support, or worse, obstructs transparent investigations and appropriate legal proceedings against these crimes, you will lose all of my support, and I will become an active opponent of your administration.
I can understand the extreme political challenges that you are faced with, both overt and otherwise. Moreover, I am sympathetic to extreme difficulty in dealing with the myriad problems of awesome difficulty that your administration has inherited. Nonetheless, I remind you of your campaign promises of "change". I believe that you know that, more than anything else, your supporters understood that the "change" that you promised was to free us from the disgusting, oligarchical and illegal policies of the Bush Administration and to restore the standing of our country in the World's community of nations. We will fail to achieve this change if we do not acknowledge the wrongs that have been committed by this country in during the Bush Administration, and show that we can take appropriate action to hold the guilty accountable.
Accordingly. I DEMAND that you allow full and transparent legal proceedings to address ALL crimes committed by the previous administration. Anything short of this will render you as being complicit with the criminals and imply that you condone their acts.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

[Bonobo]

1. Come on, let's see some more letters!