NYT: Appoint prosecutor to investigate Cheney for torture

[planosteve]

On the heels of the Senate Intelligence Committee's blistering report on the CIA's brutal handling of prisoners after 9/11, the New York Times is calling for a criminal investigation of former Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for conspiring to commit torture and other crimes prohibited by federal and international laws.

"Americans have known about many of these acts for years," the Times editorial board stated on Monday. "But the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality."

In a recent appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney refused to call some of the tactics, including involuntary rectal feeding, torture.

“We were very careful to stop short of torture,” Cheney said. "We worked hard to stay short of that definition."

In its editorial, the Times said the "sadistic" techniques outlined in the committee's report "are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of 'severe physical or mental pain or suffering.' They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture."

"It is no wonder that today’s blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were," the Times continued. "As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal."

The paper criticized President Barack Obama for failing "to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects":

http://news.yahoo.com/nyt-prosecute-dick-cheney-cia-torture-174154702.html

[Sangersteve]

Idiots,plural