President Obama may be hoping to turn the page on the Bush torture years, but Sen. Russ Feingold suggests that prosecution may still be forthcoming. He points out what the president did NOT say when promising that members of the CIA who engaged in torture would not be prosecuted:
"The president has stated that it is not his administration's intention to prosecute those who acted reasonably and relied in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice. As I understand it, his decision does not mean that anyone who engaged in activities that the Department had not approved, those who gave improper legal advice or those who authorized the program could not be prosecuted. The details made public in these memos paint a horrifying picture and reveal how the Bush administration's lawyers and top officials were complicit in torture. The so-called enhanced interrogation program was a violation of our core principles as a nation and those responsible should be held accountable."
Bybee, Bradbury, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Haynes, and Feith may have escaped international war crimes prosecution at the hands of the Spanish, but that doesn't mean they're free and clear.
The CIA minions will be safe from prosecution but the legal enablers of torture may yet face the music for their actions.