There is this on-going debate as to whether the Obama administration should or should not prosecute officials of the Bush administration who formulated “enhanced interrogation” policies. Some suggest that it is unfair to prosecute people who were merely performing their official duties.
Oh really? So why did we prosecute Nazis? Adolf Eichmann said it most eloquently in his memoirs: he was only following orders, and his desire in life was to perform his duties superbly and please his superiors. So why did we not give him a freaking medal instead of hanging him?
It might be politically expedient for Obama not to prosecute anyone. But don’t try to suggest please that somehow, it is the “right” thing to do. The only right thing to do is to hold people fully accountable for what they had done, especially people at the top who made key decisions. Like, people who authorized torture, people who asked for, and drafted, legal opinions that authorized torture in a language that would have made Orwell proud.