So what's the reason behind releasing this?

[spence]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

Well, this is disturbing, under Bush, with his Attorney General, Judges and Lawyers, waterboarding was not considered illegal, but now the new administration says it is, so we can go back and prosecute those involved in making those decisions.

Waterboarding is clearly illegal under International Law and the Geneva Conventions. Additionally, the United States has recognized water boarding as a war crime historically and has prosecuted people for water boarding under war crime statutes.

There's ample precident to state that it is indeed illegal.

Under Bush, his council came up with some reasons they thought we could get away with it and the Administration, based on that advice, allowed it to occur.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't still illegal, a court would have to decide, but the case doesn't look good.

I'm sure many of our left leaning friends here even would have supported it, after 9/11. It's hard to go back and remember the way we felt, but we would have done anything to prevent another attack.

Your statement is akin to pleading insanity. I wasn't responsible for my actions after 9/11 because I was afraid, or Bush's position, that laws don't really apply any more. Neither option looks good from where I'm standing.

And I'm sure many of our right leaning friends here would at least take a few steps backwards, look at how we reacted at that time, and seek to learn from past behavior so we can operate in a more responsible manner in the future. While there may have been good information derived from torture was there a net gain?

I think Obama is in a tough situation here but is taking a reasonable course of action. I don't think we should go after the CIA and other agents who took part in the activity, and I don't think the Nazi "we were just following orders" attack is necessarily applicable either.

If there is evidence that Bush's attorney's understood the legal ramifications and still sought to give Bush the authority (i.e. cooked the books) then they should be held accountable, although I'm not sure if they've technically broken any law.

-spence