There’s a doctor present

“It’s not torture because there was a doctor present.” That is the entirety of their argument.

The Bush administration approved and committed torture, period. There is no debating it anymore. They did it for the same reasons, used the same methods  and fabricated the same legal justification that every other torturing regime in the history of the planet has used to commit torture.  It’s the icing on the cake for the Bush administration – illegal wars, illegal surveillance, claims of unrestricted power, promotion of a permanent state of fear, and naturally, torture. They played the part and followed the script of madmen, dictators and murderers. They are criminals and they will be forever remembered along with the worst of the worst of humanity; but history alone is not justice.

Torture is a crime. It is not a policy difference. There are laws in the books against it. The idea that we have to move on is stupid and just as dangerous as committing torture in the first place. This is not the same as dropping a nuclear bomb for the first time in the history of the world and then deciding it will not happen again no matter the circumstance. Torture is an old evil and this is it happening yet again and there is no room for forgiveness. They knew very well what they were doing which is why they worked so hard to justify it, then hide it, and now misinform and lie about it.

The future of international law will be decided by what comes next. If the US were to prosecute those responsible for the torture regime, it’ll be the most important thing to ever happen in terms of the advancement of international human rights and international law principles. The most powerful country on the planet holding itself accountable for its own crimes. There is no more powerful statement and it would realize a lot of what right now are just words on papers – that people are entitled to human rights and that all governments must respect those rights. No one would ever again get away with it.

Failure to prosecute would only signal that the US does not take those words and ideals seriously. That they are meaningless. Everyone else would have reason to follow suit if they wished to and violate whatever law they feel – be it torture, nuclear weapons proliferation, aggressive war or else. Bush’s actions have already caused a lot of this to happen – look at North Korea and Iran’s pursuit of illegal nuclear weapons, look at Russia, China and Israel’s aggressive illegal military actions towards their own people and their neighbors, look at the ongoing Sudanese genocide. If the biggest player will not respect international law then there is no reason for anyone else to do so either and there is no one left to enforce it. Other countries could prosecute the Bush admin and likely will, but that would just be a continuation of the same slow struggle for international human rights that led to the successful prosecution of German war criminals, Japanese war criminals, South American war criminals, African war criminals – only to see it happen yet again in the US. Just trudging along forever.