Thousands of Pages of Evidence and a Quarter Million Signatures: What Will It Take For Attorney General to Prosecute Torture Crimes?

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted April 24, 2009.

These role players are not trained to obtain reliable intelligence information from detainees. Their job is to train our personnel to resist providing reliable information from detainees.

The fact that the Bush administration adopted and aggressively used methodology designed to extract false confessions is a bit mind boggling -- unless one assumes that they weren't actually looking for a real rationale to begin with, just any statement that would justify invading Iraq.

Holder must investigate war crimes

"There are plenty of new names and details in the Armed Services Committee report," Jane Mayer wrote this week, "including a scene of two military men teaching the C.I.A. how to use Chinese torture techniques. One of the instructors, Joseph Witsch, played the 'beater,' while the other, Gary Percival, became the 'beatee.' By the mid-summer of 2002, beating was no longer just an academic exercise. Precisely when these tactics were used on live captives, and at what point top Bush officials endorsed them, may be a matter of serious interest to Attorney General Eric Holder."

Indeed, from the OLC memos to the Senate Armed Services Committee report, the sum total of everything that should be of serious interest to Eric Holder is overwhelming. Perhaps it is too soon to say what if anything will come of his vow this week "to follow the evidence wherever it takes us." But it would be a serious miscarriage of justice not to begin taking steps to investigate and prosecute these crimes of war. If Holder and the Obama DOJ do not, it will not be for lack of evidence.

As Eric Holder left the hearing room on Thursday, David Swanson, one of the most vocal activists calling for prosecutions for Bush's crimes, called out to him from his third-row seat.

"We need a special prosecutor for torture, Mr. Attorney General," Swanson said. "Americans like the rule of law. The rule of law for everybody."

He replied as he approached and walked by, surrounded by bodyguards:

"And you will be proud of your country."

I was joined by others in replying simultaneously:

"Yes, we want to be proud of our country. We're ready. No need to wait."

Holder knew exactly what it would take for me to be proud of my country, and he told me directly that I would be.

Will I? Time will tell.

See more stories tagged with: iraq, 9/11, cia, torture, al qaeda, al qaeda, new york times, dick cheney, donald rumsfeld, condoleezza rice, john yoo, prosecutions, jay bybee, carl levin, eric holder, torture memos, jonathan landay

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