November 18, 2010 / by emptywheel

 

We Convicted a Guy the Bush Administration Tortured

More like this please:

“So, we tried a guy (who the Bush Admin tortured and then held at GTMO for 4-plus years with no end game whatsoever) in a federal court before a NY jury with full transparency and international legitimacy and — despite all of the legacy problems of the case (i.e., evidence getting thrown out because of Bush-Admin torture, etc,) we were STILL able to convict him and INCAPACITATE him for essentially the rest of his natural life, AND there was not one — not one — security problem associated with the trial.”

“Would it have been better optically if he had been convicted of more counts? Sure. Would it have made any practical difference? No.”

If every time the fearmongers rolled out their dog and pony show, the Obama Administration would go on the attack and focus on how stupid and inhumane Bush Administration policy was, then maybe it would open up enough space to actually move beyond those stupid policies.

Of course, the whole thing would be a lot more effective if this anonymous Senior Administration Official had the courage to say all this on the record, under his own name. But–assuming this is one of the people close to DOJ who, if they acknowledged that Ghailani was tortured, would be obliged to prosecute the torturers–that would also mean the Obama Admin would start prosecuting the Bushies for their inhumane treatment. I’m all in favor of that, but that would entail looking backward, and we know that’s not going to happen.

Which is probably why this is will be the last powerful response we hear like this.

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2010/11/18/we-convicted-a-guy-the-bush-administration-tortured/