Justice. Honor. And sympathy for the "Milgram victims".

[meowse]

I've been thinking about Obama's decision not to prosecute the CIA interrogators who carried out the torture. I understand where he's coming from. These are people who were told that this was legal by the highest authorities in the land, who were ordered to carry out these actions, and who acted "in good faith" that what they were doing was legal

Comments

[jadine]

We need to prosecute them very publically, in order to teach the general public about these things. I don't know how widely known the Milgram experiments are - I have a psych degree, so no perspective on general knowledge in the area - but it's certainly not a topic taught to average high schoolers, and it needs to be.

The trials should be graphic, and drawn out, and sprayed across TV like OJ Simpson until everyone in America is tired of them. At the end we'll give the interrogators ridiculously long sentences, but credit them for time served during the trials and quietly suspend nearly all of the rest.

[bluejogger]

IANAL, however...

Legally punishing someone for unethical or immoral (but not illegal) behavior has been traditionally difficult. Legally, we might be in a position of saying these people did what they did, it was wrong but legal under US law. Now the UN can step in and say we broke Geneva Conventions. Not sure what happens then, but I believe that's why we have the Geneva Conventions. This assumes that we can legally suspend (redefine?) US laws that have obvious unethical and immoral implications during wartime.

On the flip side, when we do something that's illegal but morally or ethically correct (like not following immoral or unethical orders or laws), that's the definition of civil disobedience. And it may be right, but that won't stop you from being arrested.

Have I gone completely into hyperspace territory here?

[gramina]

If it is only possible to prosecute under Geneva Convention/war crimes standards, that means sending them to the Hague. I'd really rather prosecute them here, and I think it's possible to make the argument that the administration didn't have the authority to declare it legal for them to torture people.

(OTOH, I really really want to see Bush & Co. at the Hague charged with war crimes.)