Does your library have National Lawyers Guild Review?

u.s. war crimes: torture as official bush administration policy105regardless of party, allow such a prosecution to go forward without vigorousand meaningful protest? How likely is it that any government in theworld will want to open that debate? Thus, it is no surprise that the Obamaadministration has refused to prosecute any former officials of the Bushadministration, preferring to limit its investigation to those CIA agents whowent far beyond the official directives of the former administration, and it isno surprise that foreign interventions have, thus far, gone nowhere.With regard to lower-level officials, such as CIA interrogators, the analysischanges a bit, but the result remains the same. The instrumental defense “toprotect the American people” has not changed, but the effectiveness of thatdefense has changed. Any domestic prosecution will have to surmount thepractical hurdle that the President of the United States authorized these interrogations.While it is true that Nuremburg put an end to the “just followingorders” defense, it is difficult to imagine that a U.S. court would find ordersapproved by a sitting President, with support of the entire National SecurityCouncil, including the Attorney General, to be so “manifestly unlawful” 77 thata person following them would be criminally liable under the War Crimes Actor any other law. This explains why the current Attorney General has limitedinvestigations into allegations of torture to instances where agents plainlywent beyond what had been authorized by the former Bush administration.Even there, successful prosecution remains questionable.Similarly, any foreign nation attempting to exercise universal jurisdictionwill have to confront the inconvenient political fact that prosecution ofany U.S. official, at whatever level, directly drags a former president of theUnited States into the case. This is not impossible, but it becomes far moredifficult. Moreover, while foreign courts may not be subject to precisely thesame political constraints as domestic courts, nonetheless they would likelyhesitate under such circumstances. One cannot be certain, but the safe betis that no one beyond a few scapegoats following Abu Ghraib will ever beprosecuted.Thus, the Administration may have achieved what it set out to do fromthe beginning—insulate both itself and lower level officials from criminalprosecution for torture. One cannot avoid the conclusion, speculative as itmay be, that these revelations, coming when and as they did, were calculatedto end the torture debate by insulating all who participated. About the worstthat can happen has happened. Anthony Lewis says that for him, GeorgeBush will always be “the Torture President.” 78We can heap on the opprobrium, as that is all that is left. Whether disgracesuffices remains an open question. Except, given the international and