President Obama Discusses Possible Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials

This is an easy one.. even a new leader should be able to figure out.. imagine the world.. eight years fast forwarded..

Dewde:
Comparing the waterboarding of
those responsible for 9/11 to
Hitler, Saddam, and Pol Pot is
ridiculous.
Like it or not the techniques kept us
safe after 9/11.
Bush and Cheney deserve our thanks
not our scorn for that.

The Obama Administration should put an end to this political witch hunt, A man that associated with the like of Areys and Dorn whose weather under ground terrorist org. actually killed innocent people with acts of violence, doesn't have the moral athority to attack people that saved american lives

gary:

you forgot that Clinton was 'prosecuted' for having sex......

you can review all of history if you care to, and point out that many incidents you somehow want to equate with the Bush torture policy were not 'prosecuted', that does not set precedent for current events ....

Dewde: You make a compelling case for not prosecuting anyone for the "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the War On Terror.

Since no one was prosecuted in previous administrations for such acts during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, etc., nor was President Truman prosecuted for authorizing the A-Bomb attacks on Japan...your point is dead-on!

reaganfan:
you said:
"One man's torture is another man's
enhanced interrogation technique."

Why were the Nazi's prosecuted then?

Why was anyone concerned with Saddam' oppression of his people?

Why was anyone in an uproar about Pol Pot?

I could go on.....

Plumber:

debunked? by who Cheney? Rumsfeld? Bush?

from the news: TODAY
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that intelligence agencies and interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

Nobody will be prosecuted and the
president knows it.
The definition of torture is not set
in stone so good luck with that!
One man's torture is another man's
enhanced interrogation technique.
This is a diversion to take away the
attention given to President Obama's
disasterous trip to Latin America where
he shook hands with Chavez and Ortega
and stood by while they denounced our
country.
Obama's foreign policy of Blah, Blah.
Blah is a joke.
His outrageous spending will bankrupt
our economy not fix it.
Therefore the president needs a
theme for his re-election campaign
in 2012.
The idea is to have numerous hearings
in the House and Senate denouncing
the "unlawful" acts of the Bush
Administration and hoping the
maniacal hatred of Bush by his
base will carry him to victory!
It won't work, Mr President!
The media can't protect you forever.
You will be a one-term president.
But don't worry maybe your pal, Chavez
will give you a job, or Ortega, or
Raul Castro!

Actually dewed that rumor was debunked years ago.

it's been revealed that Bush & Co. used torture to try and elicit phony info about the justification for starting the Iraq war.........this has nothing to do with 9/11..... it's about Bush & Cheney starting a war, getting Americans killed and maimed because Bush and Cheney lied.

Waterboarding doesnt sound like torture to me. Listening to B Hussein Obama and his lies is more like torture to me.

It's not the least bit clear that we tortured anyone. Waterboarding is not torture.
********************************
"As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects.

What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique."

(Malcom Nance - just part of an informative article written 10/31/07)

It's not the least bit clear that we tortured anyone. Waterboarding is not torture. We know the current president is murdering Somali teenagers and Pakistani families. Let's prosecute him for that. It's not like Congress said it was okay.

This entire discussion is right out of Alice in Wonderland. For years, we listened to Bush and Cheney claim "we do not torture." Now that it's clear that we did, we're listening to the likes of George Tenet claim that it was effective. So according to former Bush administration, that which we didn't do was effective.

How does George Tenet, the man who claimed that the case for WMD's in Iraq was a "slam dunk," have the nerve to offer his opinions on anything? Crawl back into your cave, George.

JKS,

No, I personally am not working on raptor program. I do know some people however who are going to be impacted by its future.

My point on this one all along was it was a relatively (comapred to the $$$ we now talk about in regards to budgets and programs) small investment for keeping nearly 100,000 good paying American jobs.

Has anyone had time to look up how many jobs the "stimulator" has created?
The so-called saved category is useless unless you use it for scenarios like the Raptor. For most businesses, it would mean publically reporting future lay-offs, hence the number will in most cases be based on vapor when you hear it used.

Here is part of the conundrum:

According to Gibbs, it is the attorney general's office that can determine if the memos were outside the law and legal.

However, the attorney general's office at the time of the events determined that the memos and actions were legal.

If a decision was made by the AG then how can it be illegal now?

Mike_C

(side note)

Were you impacted by the discontinuation of the Raptor?

"It is sad that weak Obama doesn't keep his word."

He knows it's not going to happen and is just playing it as any savy politico would. Get the additional political capital for appeasing the Dems while getting the intended result anyway. He's good.

Now, after years of safety, when the political climate allows for everyone to criticize, now these "people" seem to have more rights than most American citizens.
_________________________________
Like healthcare.?.

The detainees receive better healthcare than many of our 9/11 rescue workers.

Afterall, we can't let them die after they are tortured and they must have the best medical care possible.

A shame, our country refuses to do that for its own citizens.

Obama is basically saying, "Even though your policies worked in stopping terrorism in this country, guess what, we're going to prosecute you .... have a nice day."