No excuses. No pardons. No TV interviews. - UPDATED (2X)

Andrew Sullivan writes this in The Atlantic:

Bush and Cheney were, in fact, more brutal in their "enhanced interrogation" than the Gestapo was. And note that I am not engaging in the slightest hyperbole here. I'm not saying that the US is Nazi Germany in any way. I am saying that the torture program used by Bush and Cheney follows exactly the specific methods used by the Gestapo. This is not in any historical dispute, although the irony of using the exact same phrase for the exact same methods is one reason the Bushies dropped the term.

We also have a very specific legal precedent. When the US captured officials who had done to prisoners exactly what the last president did, the US prosecuted them, found them guilty and executed them. The price Cheney pays is a fawning interview on CNN.

That's who we are. That's what we've become.

We cannot afford to brush this off.

h/t to Nicholas Knisely at The Lead

UPDATE:
See also the post by Meteor Blades here. There you will find this quote from Lincoln's second inaugural speech:

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility."

See also budhydharma's post "Can Holder Ignore the Red Cross Report? Can Obama?"
There we read of the International Committee of the Red Cross' recent report that Mark Danner makes this observation:

"It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,' " Danner said in a telephone interview. "The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law."

The United States is bound by the Geneva Conventions. Now that we have documentation and authoritative evaluation that WE HAVE INDEED COMMITTED TORTURE, the law should be followed.

As I wrote in the heading: No excuses. No pardons. Prosecution of those from whom the orders flowed. Now.


--the BB