CIA Not Responsible For Torture, Culprit Still Unknown?
 Friday, April 17th, 2009  by Connie T.

The Barack Obama Administration has released the long-awaited CIA memos that reveal interrogation techniques that some call harsh, and others (including the ACLU) call torture.

The Justice Department under President George W. Bush approved waterboarding, putting prisoners in cramped confinement with an insect, shackling detainees to keep them awake for up to one week, and walling (slamming the suspect against the wall and making sure his/her shoulder blades hit), among other severe methods.

The memos, 124 pages in total, were released because of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, who states that some of the interrogation methods used have been classified as war crimes in the past. The Obama Administration has said that the CIA will not be prosecuted for these actions. As explained by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

"These memos...are legal authorizations for specific actions to be undertaken...Hardworking people at the CIA that did what they were told based on the authorization they'd been given. The President feels it would be unfair to punish those."

Which begs the question, doesn't it: Who authorized it?

How pissed off we are at any terrorists that may or may not have been detainees bent on the destruction of the US, that does not belie the facts: that torture is specifically forbidden under our Constitution, under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), under UN Convention, and under anti-torture legislation enacted by Congress. Our founders in their fairness dismissed cruel and unusual punishment, as much as experts today confirm its inaccuracy. The very documents that define the principles of our nation debar the practice of it.


Ask the Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate who authorized the Bush Administration's interrogation policies in this pre-filled message from the ACLU.

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