"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department."

Bullshit and lies.

I can't imagine a "dedicated" man or woman "working to protect America" being willing to inflict these tortures on another human being unless they're amoral sadists. All the glittering generalities won't obsure the truth that these CIA men and women were bestial thugs, deserving of our contempt and certainly deserving of prison time. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, you don't need a weatherman to know when you've been given an illegal order. Or, put another way, any trained military man or woman or CIA agent--hell, any adult--who cannot by his or her own discernment know that he or she is participating in acts that amount to torture, that are inhumane and illegal, should not be trusted even with a driver's license, much less be put in position to shit on our Constitution by abusing other human beings. Even if one could be convinced that such orders are legal, one's own sense of decency should require that one refuse to participate in such evil acts.

Obama here simply cements his guilt as complicit in the Bush war crimes, just as his drone bombings killing innocents in Pakistan make him, as was Bush, a murderer.

As for those concerned with the "next election cycles," don't vote for the bastards! I didn't vote for Obama this past time, but for Nader. I had been wavering, but Obama's breach of his vow NOT to vote for the FISA revision if it conveyed retroactive legal protection to the telecoms for their part in Bush's illegal surveillance of Americans scotched him for me, definitively and permanently. He showed even then he's an opportunistic dissembler, willing to go along with egregious crimes so he can then point to some lesser "good" he may have done or will do later and say, "That's my legacy!"

The lesser of two evils is still evil, and we can never hope to unseat our current abysmal system of having a choice only between the "greater" and the "lesser" evil unless we delegitimize these candidates by refusing them our votes.

"...why would (waterboarding) ever need to be applied more than once? Much less 266 times."

Because it's torture.

Because the purpose of torture is not just (or even necessarily primarily) to obtain information, but to inflict pain and terror, to phyically brutalize a helpless individual, thereby destroying him pscyhologically. Because those who would order torture, and those who would inflict it, are sadists who enjoy their complete power over others, including the freedom to brutalize.

Because they're thugs.

I am sure I don't share NotOrbitBoy's political affiliation, as I am a registered democrat and loathed the criminals Bush and Cheney (and their cohort). I DO think we should prosecute them for war crimes. The thing is, Obama is also a war criminal, and NOB points out the reason: the drone bombings inside Pakistan are illegal and they have killed innocents. Additionally, to the extent he does not advocate for or tries to impede the Justice Department from investigating the previous administration's war crimes and, where called for, mounting prosecutions from top to bottom, he is complicit in THEIR war crimes.

I did not vote for Obama, but for Nader, as Obama displayed his cowardice and/or treachery in voting FOR the revised FISA law, which makes it easier to obtain wiretaps and which also extended legal protections to the telecoms for their participation in Bush's illegal wiretapping. Objectionable enough on its own terms, his vote was doubly so given that Obama had previously vowed NOT to vote for a FISA revision that included such extension of legal protections to the telecoms.

Now, he continues to betray previous stands: he once championed single payer universal health care, and now he excludes it from the "reform" conversation entirely; he previously vowed to halt raids of legal medical marijuana providers, and now he okays that the raids and prosecutions of medical marijuana providers continue; he previously condemned Bush's secret government and advocated for transparency, but he now argues in court to preserve and expand Bush's unitary powers and secrecy; and so on.

Fuck Bush; fuck Obama.