I would happily stand beside heru-ur any day. I would love to be able to shake his hand.

I have a very strong moral compass, which can be summarised very succinctly as "thou shalt not kill".

I do not expect you to understand this.

Bit if that earns your contempt, well, I observe that many principles and people I consider worthy have also earned your contempt, so perhaps it is not so useful an indicator as you suppose?

There was no direct military value in the nuking of two Japanese cities. The purpose of the bombings was never cited anywhere as "destroying this munitions factory" or "disrupting that supply route" ... and for good reason: those purposes were never part of the exercise. Even you should be able to recall the previous post wherein some justify them, not on any direct military objective, but on the psychological effect they had on the Japanese and thus the avoidance of a conventional invasion. But exactly HOW did that effect come about? It wasn't any threat to the military capacity of the Japanese, who were already suing for peace, it was a threat to their very existence.

If you cannot see that this is the essence of terrorism then do not cast blame on me for your incapacity. It is entirely your own deficiency that is at work here.

(Just for the record: yes, the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were of exactly the same sort, equally malign in intent, in design, and in effect.)

The UN is actually the "Brotherhood of Despots and Tyrants" [elide rest of wingnut talking point]

So that must be why the US is still a member?

That must be why there was so much effort expended by Bush et al in making the case that the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq were justified internationally by pre-existing UN Resolutions?

But that isn't the funniest thing. You have an unerring knack of whenever you've been made to look ridiculous, always going the next step to become even more ridiculous, viz: "In short, might is right."

Not just makes right in some pseudo-real-politik, consent-to-state-monopoly-on-violence, winner-write-history sense, but IS right.

So if I came to your house, lobbed in a few CS grenades, shot you as you ran out, put on a gas mask and looted your stuff, that would be, according to you, absolutely unquestionably right.

Congrats. You're a parody of a self-parody.

Of course you are correct, a Bush AG is unlikely to prosecute for a policy he helped create.

But in that is the core of the argument. If as the AG did, classify the activities of the Bush administration as not torture, then no torture occured, and as such no violation. While the new AG may classify the activities as torture, they have a much harder time going back to prosecute when the written policy at the time was that the activities were not torture.

It isn't to say it's impossible to bring such a case, however it opens up a can of worms, since it puts an individual AG's judgement over another to justify the prosecution. As a result in eight years time, another AG may state that techniques used by the Obama administration were cruel or unusual, or in some other way coercive. Even is such a prosecution is simply brought for political grand standing reasons, it sets a precident that is hard to undo.

This is why it was necessary for congress to act at the time the torture occured. To take action after the fact highlights the implied consent of congress to the actions, and that implied consent simply gives more cover to the administration in their argument that "what was authorized wasn't torture, but a few bad apples may have gone to far lower down the chain". If they can say, and they would say that ranking members of the House and Senate foreign relations committees were aware and gave consent to these actions, the judgement of the next AG becomes somewhat superfluous to the prosecution.

Unless there is a clear smoking gun memo stating unequivically that the current administration aknowledged their actions were torture but authorized them anyway, then you will have a difficult time presenting this argument. As it turns out, there seem to be quite a number of memos stating just the oposite, of determining where the line of torture was, and ensuring that the policy did not cross it by the standards of the administration.

Since what is being discussed is poorly defined, it is a much more tangeled legal issue then at first blush many assume.

I am sure Mr. Obama is savy enough of a politician to go over the records, and have his people conduct a silent investigation of the issue now that he has access. If there is a case to be made, that can be made, they will likely make it. If however, as it seems, the issue would simply draw out a political fight not worth having as the horses have one assumes been rounded up and put back in the barn under Mr. Obama.

As with any situation, it comes down to trust. Do you trust that Mr. Obama would bring a case if a case could be made? If you don't trust in that, then it's a moot argument from the start.

Whether the new boss is the same as the old boss depends fully on whether we trust the new boss or not. Obviously bringing a case against Bush administration officials removes all doubt, unless of course the evidence isn't as strong as some assume, and the whole affair appears as a political lynching.

We'll all just have to see what happens on this front in the comming months.

Right back where we started from.

I opened this letters section this morning and we seemed to have come full circle -- but for the fact that Vagina Grenades don't actually "tick", as it were. Well, but that's not a relief in the end, is it? Good heavens, what if...??? The mind boggles.

(I seem to recall these same tales being told at the VFW Hall by geezers who'd served "over there" during WWI, the Great War, when I was just a brat following my father's brogues. The offending female parts being those of the Bosch and/or Mata Hari-like Spy-Wimmins. Scare-ee.)

Some fun, eh?

But for the question, whether there is an obligation at law to investigate and prosecute the miscreants and high criminals of the Bush Regime, it would seem there is, though whether it can be sidestepped is still open. Given the mutability of the application of Sacred Law, I have no doubt that politically motivated sidestepping of this obligation is almost assured.

Which is why I would prefer a clear refusal to investigate/prosecute, thus throwing the issue to outside intervention, at least according to my interpretation.

The problem is that the American system has been so compromised and corrupted that, despite Anthony Romero's declaration that we have the "finest justice system in the world," the fact is that it cannot even beging to handle something like this. The American Exceptionalist notion that it can is, I believe, self-defeating. All that does is ensure that nothing is ever done.

What about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission route? Maybe. But who or what would convene it? Congress? One has to laugh. No. The Imperial Executive? The People in their Outrage?

We really don't have standing institutions that could do it. And given all the other priorities that seem to have arisen, it's unlikely that any of our failed and failing institutions could come up with something in the short term.

So. Let there be an open refusal to investigate/prosecute, then let the international chips fall, as they say, where they may.