The prestige hit and vulnerability to "letting down the troops" criticisms will ensure this doesn't happen.
This isn't some off the books CIA wet team opp. It was planned and signed off at the highest levels. John Yoo, who wrote the torture memos, is a professor at Berkeley. That's how mainstream this was.
Furthermore, the people signed off on it. Not just through our Congressional representatives. Not just because we re-elected the politicians who did it. The public supported it directly. We've known for a long what was going on.
Prosecuting only the people who carried out the orders is cowardly.
You'd have to try Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, a bunch of high ranking DOD and DOJ officials, a bunch of Generals and other officers, Congressional leadership from that era, and former CIA directors too.
"Just following orders" didn't work at Nuremberg because we were trying the people who gave the orders too.
As I recall, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Dexter all rated pretty well too.
I don't know about other shows, did "good guys" use torture ? Were they able to walk away without any problems ?
Also, I don't think election votes can ever count as approval; Congress has approval ratings nearing single digits yet incumbents usually get re-elected.
> The public supported it directly. We've known for a long what was going on.
We know what goes on in North Korea too but that doesn't mean we approve.
And the US is under ubiquitous NSA surveillance, along with domestic propaganda now legalized. Given this, I think the US people are, if anything, being subjugated by the government, not conspiring with it.
Having the juniors in prision would build political pressure from those who follow orders (military etc.) for the politicians to join them and hopefully make it less of a party political issue.
The only reason the Nuremberg trails happened at all, was that Germany lost. No-one was indited over fire-bombing Dresden, or nuking Hiroshima. People didn't go to prison over atrocities committed in Vietnam.
While there should be prosecution over this, it seems unlikely to happen in the current US system. I'm not holding my breath, but with the continuing unrest in the country, there might be some actual changes in the coming years. But a lot would need to happen -- for example there's the need for a viable political power-block other than the Democrats and the Republicans -- I sadly don't see that happening any time soon.
Well, one guy was grounded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley
"William Laws Calley, Jr. (born June 8, 1943) is a former United States Army officer found guilty of murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. After several reductions, Calley’s original sentence of life in prison was turned into an order of house arrest, but after three years, President Nixon reduced his sentence with a presidential pardon."
I guess that'll be as good as it gets.
How could they have known what the people they command do? They could never possibly even dream of doing anything wrong, and if they did, they always did it in the best interests of those they lead and governed. And if it was illegal, well, they'll make it legal; and if convicted, the conviction will be overturned on appeal, or you'll get pardoned.. unless you piss off the wrong man in power. Then you could get shot in the face, and made to apologize for being in the way of the gun.
Overall, yes, everybody knew "enhanced interrogation" was in use and was effectively "okay" with it. Not that many knew what that was or what it included beyond sleep deprevation and water boarding. I think the way it was out sourced is absolutely interesting, there is a lot more than meets the eye there...
A lot of people involved sure aren't proud of it all though
There is a huge difference between torture and killing people with drone strikes abroad after they joined al Qaeda. Once captured, a person is no longer a solider or a combatant.
But some American citizen who is fighting for al Qaeda? He is a soldier.
The DOJ would say they do give him due process, but I think their definition is bullshit and can be dangerous.
But I don't think an enemy solider gets any due process. We didn't read the Confederate Army their rights at Gettysberg. We just shot at them. I just don't think someone at war and at large gets due process.
Obama is the president of the country blatantly, in the open, violating Geneva Conventions - Gitmo, drone strikes. Not that anybody, who matters, cares though.
He only has the best of intentions, but darn it, those obstructionist Republicans always stand in the way.
Only following orders is no justification for war crimes including torture. The world needs to see that America believes that and that it doesn't just apply to Nazi's. America is an example to the world, please be a good one.