Over 100 detainees died during U.S. interrogations, dozens due directly to interrogation abuse. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said: "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A." Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse, wrote: "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."I think Obama may have made the right call by allowing a whitewash - as shitty as that seems, and as thoroughly depressing as it is. The Bushies knew how to play it. They made sure practically everybody shared the guilt - not just the bosses and the party apparatchiks, but the career bureaucrats as well. Obama couldn't just go after a few at the top because that'd look too politically motivated. And if he tried to let the thing go wherever it needed to go, then he'd have to spend every waking moment riding herd on it. Once you start that kind of thing, it quickly turns into a witch hunt, and then the careerists and the cynical manipulators are about the only ones who really benefit. Obama had to be thinking the costs of that level of disruption outweigh the benefits.
I'm hoping big time that Obama's working behind the scenes (thru the IG Offices maybe?) to root out the bad guys and cut 'em loose. Unfortunately, I think once somebody gets around to writing The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire, this episode will be cited as a signal event.
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