The Osterley Times: Scahill: Why We Need to Prosecute From Top to Bottom.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Scahill: Why We Need to Prosecute From Top to Bottom.

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I'm ashamed to say that I have only discovered Jeremy Scahill very recently when he appeared with Bill Maher.

Here he explains to Keith just how ludicrous some of Cheney's claims were in that recent interview with Chris Wallace:

Let's remember here that these legal justifications quote unquote for torture, that's what it was, that Cheney and Bush and their lawyers developed, they were incredible stretches of the law to begin with. They violate the basic principles of multiple conventions including the Convention Against Torture; which was, of course, ratified under that militant leftist Ronald Reagan, it violates the Geneva Convention as that draft dodging man who would never know torture if he endured for years - John McCain - condemned on the Sunday talk shows this weekend. So, the fact is that Dick Cheney wants to cover up all the criminality, all the wrong doing from the American people.

[...]

We don't have real journalism for the most part in this society when we talk of the question of torture. The fact is that if the American people were aware - in detail, drumbeat coverage - of what was being done in their name; power drills, squeezing of testicles, slamming people's heads against walls. All the things that went on, it would stop. That's the role of journalists and yet we see this infotainment with Dick Cheney: a war criminal.

Then he makes the point which I think is the most important one regarding why these people must be prosecuted:

The Obama administration needs to hold these individuals accountable from top to bottom so that we send a message going forward that torture is going to be unacceptable in this country. The media set the tone and they get an "F" for their coverage of this issue.

I wouldn't even go as far as to give Chris Wallace an "F", I'd say his work would result in instant expulsion from any reasonable school of journalism.