Memorial Day Memo: Honor Those Who Stood Up Against Torture

[struggle4progress]

... Over this past week we have been provided the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General's Report on the FBI's role in detainee interrogations, we've heard Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a speech at Google admitting that "enhanced" interrogation techniques were authorized out of necessity, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey exhorting Boston College Law School graduates - law school graduates!! - to be more forgiving to the lawyers like Jack Goldsmith who enabled torture ...

What the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General's report tells us is that there were cool heads at the time telling the ones who wanted to torture not to do that. There were all of these voices - in that same post 9/11 environment - who were objecting up and down the line to the actions of their co-workers. These were people who were willing to "not go along to get along" because they questioned the wisdom of the work of those who enabled torture.

May I ask Secretary Rice and Attorney General Mukasey, where is your concern for those lawyers? Where is your concern for Alberto Mora standing up and objecting in the Pentagon? Where is your concern for Bruce C. Swartz , Marion "Spike" Bowman, and Pasquale D'Amuro, lawyers in the FBI? Where is your concern for the FBI agents who went up their chain of command to object to treatment that was patently illegal? Where is your concern for a William Taft IV at the State Department who argued for the applicability of the Geneva Conventions?

Rice and Mukasey ask us to take pity on the legal advisors who enabled torture. That is like taking pity on the sheriff who hands over the prison and the prisoners to the lynch mob. Why not take pity on the deputy who stands in the door and refuses the rule of the jungle? ...

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/05/memorial-day-memo-honor-those-who-stood.php