Torture: The Coles Notes Version

Here's Brad DeLong simplifying the issues floating around about torture and accountability. This is the key bit:

As I understand things, Cheney and the Bush NSC--Rice and company--went hunting for someone who would tell them (a) waterboarding isn't torture, and (b) the president can legally order torture. They found John Yoo, who told them what they wanted. Then Bush told Rice to order the CIA to torture.

Now as I understand Edley's position, Berkeley cannot proceed against Yoo because he did not do any wrongful deeds--he just gave wrongful advice. And Stanford cannot proceed against Rice because even though she was in the chain of command she did not know that the deeds were wrongful.

A very nice setup indeed.

This is elegant just like a murder mystery writer's "perfect crime". Everybody has an excuse and nobody is accountable because they are just a link in the chain... wait a second, wasn't the the defense in the Nurenberg trials?

My two cents: This is very dangerous political ground, so it needs to handled above board and with great integrity. There needs to be special prosecutor with full powers to investigate and a bi-partisan, irreproachable committee of Congress that sits on this issue and decides what laws were broken and then moves anyone accountable to a court of law. This way you defuse vicious political sniping. (OK, you never entirely get rid of it, but you contain it to the crazed fringes of politics.)