On December 11, I asked Eric Holder to begin prosecuting the torturers by going after the former head of the CIA Clandestine serves, Jose Rodriguez.
Prosecute Jose Rodriguez For Destroying CIA Torture Tapes
It seems unconscionable that nobody has been brought up on chargers for the torture of prisoners by the CIA, but that's been the reality so far. I have a suggestion, let's start with Jose Rodriguez, who destroyed at least ninety-two video tapes of enhanced interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah without any authority to do so.
The reason why Rodriguez destroyed those tapes came from the good old days of Richard Nixon, and his secret tapes and the lessons learned by them. William F. Buckley wrote a column called: "Nixon Should Have Burned Tapes," which says it all.
Today the NY Times Editorial Board wrote a scathing op-ed demanding that we Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses
The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY1052COMMENTS
But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.
One of Obama's big failures is his refusal to go after these torturers because he doesn't want to go after his predecessors, but they could at least set up a special prosecutor or committee to look into it.
You can be sure that a Republican administration would do the same in a heart beat.
