

U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Concludes - 1337biz
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/us-practiced-torture-after-9-11-nonpartisan-review-concludes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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darxius
Can someone familiar with law (and international law) comment on this? How
likely is it that high ranking officials will be held accountable for this?

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mpyne
I would say it's about as likely as it was before, sadly.

The Obama administration has seemingly made it a policy to decline to
prosecute these types of offenses by the preceding administration. There's
undoubtedly more that went into that decision than trying to piss off their
own activist base but I don't see that any of the decision points would have
changed for them.

As far as international law, the evidence hasn't really changed, it's always
been risky for some of the Bush administration's neocons to travel abroad and
risk arrest. I just don't see a country starting an international incident
over this (but who knows?...)

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darxius
Doesn't the UN have a duty to pursue the allegations and the evidence? What
we're talking about here is war crimes is it not?

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mpyne
The commission came to its conclusion using publically accessible information,
so if the UN has a duty now, it also had it before.

But even if the UN does investigate it, they would need to tread very
carefully. Whatever else you might think about President Obama, he's not an
idiot, and what /that/ means is that he cannot under any circumstances allow
UN _anybody_ to arrest any Americans on U.S. soil unless he can get the
Congress to buy off on that. Anything other than that would be political
suicide. And needless to say, but Congress will be in no hurry to turn over
anyone to be tried by some other tribunal. If it's really decided to be that
bad they will want to prosecute in a U.S. court, but under almost no
circumstance would they allow some other court to take a hack at it.

With that in mind it would be foolish for the UN to attempt an arrest only to
be forcefully rebuffed as that would make them appear impotent. ("Never give
an order you expect won't be carried out"). Mind, they might actually _be_
impotent, but it still is better for the UN that they don't appear so.

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darxius
So, basically, people in positions of power can get away with almost anything.
Even murder and torture. What the fuck is wrong with society?

