A Nation Of (Out)Laws

The CIA and members of the executive branch are either subject to the laws of this nation or they are not. And, if the history of those respectable institutions are any indication, they are not.

The media debate around this is puzzling. It's nice to see more people calling torture by its name, but everyone is characterizing this in terms of the right and left. I had no idea the Constitution, Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg Principles, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Uniform Code of Military Justice and the UN Convention Against Torture were conceived to satisfy "the left." The fact that torture cannot be talked about outside of the left/right paradigm says something about our political culture.

We need to follow this through to the end to reestablish the fact that we are a nation of laws. If we don't, then we aren't. And we aren't. So we won't.

Related: Cartoons about Obama and torture are here, here and here. Also, I made an argument against the "move forward" mantra in the carton "Zen Justice" a few months ago.