Torture is a crime. The people responsible are criminals. Treat them accordingly!

But what's this "We" shit?

Sitting governments are responsible for the actions of prior administrations, becuase htey are all the Unite States Government.

Obama is not legally culpable - unless torture happened under his administration - but it IS his responsibility, as current leader of our givernment. Thus the "we"

But I still don't like the "We".

that we, as in you, me, and everybody in this country, are responsible. In a democracy, the government represents us, so if they torture, it's all our responsibility. If we didn't know about it, then it's our responsibility to prosecute them when we learn about it. If we did know about it (and we kind of did), we are, to some extent, culpable for those crimes - especially if we don't prosecute now.

if he continues to cover for the guilty parties, he is committing obstruction of justice

How do we know that he didn't??

we do not know yet if potus was giving or receiving the orders

but about the bush era torture program we know potus has known and covered for the criminals for years now,that would be at least ,obstruction of justice

if we were still a nation of laws

Sheesh. You tortured "terrorists" or "hardened criminals", but you don't torture "folks"

"Folks" sounds like the nice couple next door or your old Aunt Sally.

They were "terrorists" or "criminals"do we? They were individuals who were not found legally guilty of anything. Just like many of those individuals still in Guantanamo. That being said his use of "folks" turns my stomach.

he feels it fits what he feels he is talking about.

It just doesn't fit the persona of what we thought we were voting for. Or...it's just my and a few others perception.

as he was talking to us Democrats "one on one" being there with "us folks/his folks" and was a welcome personal touch in a candidate. I just don't think it works when addressing a national/global audience now that he's President and needs a bit of distance in speaking style.

But, it's his personal style and I guess its a plus that he's being consistent even if it bothers some of us.

They don't want to say "We tortured people"

But they "apologized" and they're "learning their lesson" so it's all good.

Wasn't "Bad Actors" their favorite characterization of people who "did bad stuff." Don't those "Security Experts" and former CIA spokespeople on CNN/Faux always talk about a few "bad actors?" I don't watch MSM enough, anymore to know if they still use that term...but, during the Bush years it was everywhere.

to see if they knew anything. Innocent folks were tortured including children. Terrorism is a technique of tyrants, and we were guilty.

chickenshit move to protect those that participated in and covered up torture. It was the president's duty to prosecute, and in that he failed us.

...Bush/Cheney on multiple occasions in the ensuing years sought and received cover from the Office of Legal Counsel (John Yoo et al).

Jesus. Obama's got several modes and tropes he uses for different things, which is fine and part of any public speaker's skill set.

One of them is word choice, and he wheels out "folks" when he's trying to suggest something needs to be regarded a little more casually; everyone should maybe relax and turn down the intensity a notch.

"We tortured some folks" is not an appropriate or effective deployment of that technique. Torture and war crime is not the subject for the homespun charm and the quasi-Southern speech patterns.

Jesus.

That was awful, and you spelled out perfectly why. "We tortured some folks." Ugh

"Folks" is Bill O'Reilly speak for the 1% trying to identify with the little people, ie. "We are just folks".

Totally tone-deaf when one is talking about destroying your nation's reputation for being against torture in any circumstance.

This is a horrible soundbite and yet not one of the MSNBC shows or any other network addressed this news item from today. Really depressing. His excuses for the guys being under pressure is equally pathetic, that is why we have laws because we know people sometimes act horribly under pressure and we want to be better than that so we design a framework that people can automatically follow when under pressure, such as "NEVER torture someone--we are better than that".

I'm sorry but Eric Holder is the worst for not being willing to do the hard work of actually prosecuting anyone that has the resources to fight back. He has the full weight and budget of the Justice Department but won't go after anyone or any bank that has the money to launch a defense even though the facts are on his side. I'd respect him a lot more (or more honestly-a tiny little bit) if he actually tried and lost. He should have been replaced after 2-3 years but Obama doesn't have the backbone either. What more could they do to Obama? Obama's legacy should be of getting our reputation (or at least standards back) rather than working within a corrupt system.

I've taken up for President Obama plenty of times these last few years because he was disrrespected from day 1, like no President I have ever known, but this is a terrible statement. According to his logic, every robber or wife-beater or abusive cop can just say I was under a lot of pressure that day--"Don't judge me!".

I don't remember whether he acknowledged it -- maybe with a sigh?

Probably a lot of that happening when people hear that.

I only saw parts of Ed, Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews' show. None of them mentioned it. All of them should have been disgusted.

The web reacted to the absurdity of the tone-deafness but those three hosts didn't seem to point it out. I can only imagine how they would have reacted if Dick Cheney had said it.

In a nutshell you say:

"Obama's legacy should be of getting our reputation (or at least standards back) rather than working within a corrupt system."

That's the crux of why some of us Democrats have become more and more frustrated as the years go by. It's been said he can't do much of anything because of the corrupt system and the terrible wrath of the Republicans, ALEC, Koch Brother.

But, our Democrat "Establishment" and "Media" (what there was of it...Netroots mostly at that time) promised us more in the Campaign and we were assured that they "had his back" and "our backs" also.

It's a bit of disillusionment to think that the system is so broken that a two termed elected Dem President can't do anything unless we keep electing "more and better Democrats." How do we do that if the elections system is broken with gerrymandering and corrupted by what the Supreme Court has allowed with corporate money virtually owning most of our elected officials? Wall Street carries on in jubilee while we wait for the next corruption that will bring down the system and it's now global with the corruption infesting the world economy. Few were held accountable...and nothing could be legislated because the system is "Too Big to Fail...Too Big to Jail...But big enough to Bail Out."

What a disheartening mess...

Well the CIA is...since they seem to be above all three branches of government.

just another 'oops!' ?

"We tortured some folks..."

We knew it but to hear the President say it adds to the gravity of the lawlessness.

In the words of Jon Stewart, that is what you call people you might meet at the Olive Garden.

what a dismissive attitude to those who suffered.

very poorly worded….

He had nothing to do with it. Most of us didn't. It was the previous administration and by default those who had installed them in office and perhaps the minority who voted for them. Most Americans were horrified and I'm not cool with the collective "we". I'm not criticizing our President for this, I just don't want to be included in this proclamation of guilt. Let the Bush administration apologize for their wrong doings.

And, I guess he is correct in that. Obama does like to be correct in legal statements since he's a Constitutional Lawyer...I guess the blood has to be on All our Presidents hands so it's shared equally ....

He shares the responsibility so no one will ever be held accountable. It's what "Presidents have to do" and they have to make "Tough Choices" is what he is saying...I guess.

That's why we voted for him despite some formidable opposition. I hope he understands that.

that he cares why we voted for him?

blame for what the previous administration did, but in this I disagree. Most Americans were not on board with this and the fact that the Bush administration tried to keep these practices secret and in the dark proves that. The President needs to wake up to that fact.

but if we don't we will never heal and their behavior becomes, to a degree, normalized. If we can't put them on trial, then at least we should investigate and reveal all our sins and ask forgiveness and condemn those that sinned.

and new faces periodically occupy offices.

For one, at least half of us and most likely a majority never considered Bush a legal President but could do nothing about it. I think the President was right in acknowledging the torture happened. He should have placed the blame where it belonged though, not on all of us. He should have said that torture was done by the previous administration, not we the people.

Nor are these folks aren't pariahs waking up everyday wondering if it is the last of freedom and treasure they are having libraries built and working the TV news, cocktail, and speech for hire circuits.

Work was really bad, the car needed a new transmission, my cat was sick, and I wound up kiting a few checks. Could happen to anyone. The bank was very understanding and quite forgiving. Wait, no it wasn't. They were real pricks about the whole thing, even after they got paid back every penny.

"We tortured some folks." I remember once upon a time I lived in this country, it had a great can-do attitude. Seems like no matter what got thrown at us, we found a way to meet challenges head on. Won wars. Invented stuff. Put men on the moon fer crissakes. Now? Three planes fly into carefully selected targets representing the country at its most oppressive - financial and military - and we go batshit crazy. Or at least some of us do.

Yeah, the attacks on 9/11 were bad, but really many of us in this very country, as well as people around the world, deal with shit that would turn your hair white. And there's no military itching to be deployed all over the globe to make them feel all better and stuff. They suck it up, gut it out (or not, to tell the truth), and keep going as best they can without massively retaliating against their oppressors. "We tortured some folks." Who did we torture? Why? Who carried it out? Who ordered it? What did we gain from the torture? What did we lose (okay, that's an easy one)?

Yeah, this is fucked up and bullshit, Mr. President.

the word "absolve". Seems to me that he has already absolved the actual people doing the torture. I may be wrong.

war profits, talking on TV, writing about their deeds. Instead some low level military got put in prison and that was the end of that. I still have hopes that I will live long enough to finally see them behind bars at The Hague being tried for war crimes.

Richard Haass (Council on Foreign Relations) on why advocates of torture should not be prosecuted.

In searching for an old PBS Documentary on "Torture" today I came across this interesting You Tube from Richard Haas explaining why torture should not be prosecuted. Haas has an interesting background and he's often on Bloomberg Business News discussing foreign policy. Anyway, watching his viewpoint in the YT..I think PBO might agree with Haas because of his "looking forward" not backward viewpoint. But...IMHO if no one is held accountable...then history will repeat and torture will happen again..and we will be lied into more wars. )


Published on Apr 23, 2012

Richard Haass on why advocates of torture should not be prosecuted.
…
BACKGROUND from WIKIPEDIA:
Richard Nathan Haass is an American diplomat. He has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Senate approved Haass as a candidate for the position of ambassador and he has been U.S. Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He succeeded George J. Mitchell as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland to help the peace process in Northern Ireland, for which he received the State Department's Distinguished Service Award. At the end of 2003, Mitchell Reiss succeeded him as special envoy. In late 2013, Haass returned to Northern Ireland to chair inter-party talks aimed at addressing some of the unresolved issues from the peace process such as parades, flags and "the past".

Life and career

Haass was born in Brooklyn, the son of Marcella (née Rosenthal) and Irving B. Haass.[2][3] From 1989 to 1993, Haass was Special Assistant to United States President George H. W. Bush and National Security Council Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs. In 1991, Haass received the Presidential Citizens Medal for helping to develop and explain U.S. policy during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Previously, he served in various posts in the Department of State (1981–85) and the Department of Defense (1979–80).

Haass's other postings include Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, the Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Studies at Hamilton College, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A Rhodes Scholar, Haass obtained a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1973 and went on to earn both a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University.[4]

Throughout the 2008 Presidential campaign, Haass advised several members of both the Republican Party and Democratic Party on issues regarding foreign policy, but did not publicly endorse a candidate due to the Council on Foreign Relations' non-partisan stance.[5]

of torture. Maybe I am wrong but I thought we all have made up our minds that the USofA does not torture. We fully know the morality and effectiveness. But pretending that we haven't decided has allowed sick individuals to do sick things in our name. It's not ok for Cheney to ask Alberto Gonzales to authorize torture.

Sending them to the Hague is a start.