Would You Be in Favor of Prosecuting a Democratic President for Torture?

[MannyGoldstein]

Poll question: Would You Be in Favor of Prosecuting a Democratic President for Torture?

Bill Clinton http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/061030ta_talk_mayer">began the outsourced torture (extraordinary rendition) program; The Republicans have now threatened Holder with investigating his own role in it. It's also been alleged that LBJ might have known about the CIA being involved in torture and killings as well.

Would you be in favor of prosecuting Democrats for torture-by-proxy? Or is that going too far?

[ProSense]

1. Sweating the fact that Bush and others deserve to be prosecuted?

Torture is illegal. The Bush administration directly sanctioned torture. They should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Why the New Torture Defense Fails

Maybe Logic Can Help



Edited title.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. No. I think they should be prosecuted.

But they won't be.

[ProSense]

4. "But they won't be." So why are you throwing up hypotheticals about prosecuting Clinton?

You have no idea what will happen in the case of Bush officials.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Obama And Holder Have Both Pretty Much Ruled It Out

Obama said the torturers themselves won't be prosecuted, and Holder said that the enabling lawyers won't be prosecuted. If the lawyers won't be prosecuted, then it's extremely unlikely that anyone else would be - everyone else has a better case than the lawyers, because a lawyer told them to do it.

[ProSense]

8. No they haven't. n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. I think torture by proxy is wrong and I would have had much more respect

for the Republicans if they had gone after Clinton for this reason as opposed to adult consensual sex. But they didn't.

If people want to open all the books on everything since Ford, fine. I would be for it. I suggest we work from the most recent backwards. Easier to unravel still existent threads that way.

[VenusRising]

5. No one should be free from prosecution.

No Democrat. No Republican. It's justice for ALL that matters. The only way that we will ever be able to move past this is to uncover every incident and prosecute to the fullest extent so that any future administration will think long and hard about going down that road again.

[chemp]

6. In a New York minute

Break the law, get prosecuted.

commit war crimes in my name, and I don't care who you are I will watch you burn!

[TheKentuckian]

9. Party doesn't matter in this at all

I also think there is substantial danger of an eternal tit for tat situation that will be worse on the whole for the American people than Bush's actions.

We need to be focused on getting the people behind prosecution, from there we can be productive but going into this gung ho but half cocked will lead to a collective shooting ourselves in the foot and I don't just mean Democrats.

[Laelth]

10. This poll makes me proud to be a member of the DU community. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[stillcool]

11. I'm sure the 'he did it too' defense..

is already written up...hence the political aspect so many are trying to avoid, or trying to push. It might me more palatable if the Clinton Administration were investigated along with the last Administration. Now there's bi-partisanship!

[MrSlayer]

12. You'd have to prosecute them all.

Bush didn't start this shit, far from it and Obama won't end it. He'll just put it back under wraps where it belongs. People are kidding themselves if they don't think torturing enemies has been going on from the beginning. It's just that no one has been so blatant about it as BushCo.

[Kaleko]

15. Agreed.

[Beacool]

19. Hear, hear!!!

You just said the biggest truth of the day. The US has either directly or indirectly tortured people for many years. Nothing new and nothing that will end either, despite all the noises being made to the contrary at the moment.

:shrug:

[leftofthedial]

13. Bill Clinton was a Democrat!?

I'd forgotten.

[Uzybone]

14. How far back should we go?

Are you suggesting we consider investiaging and prosecuting LBJ's admin as well? How much further back should we go? FDR?

[Autumn]

16. Voted yes

in a heartbeat with no hesitation.

[mix]

17. this has never been a partisan issue for me, so yes. n/t

[lunatica]

18. Yes. nt

[bigwillq]

20. Yes.

Torture is wrong.

[hedgehog]

21. This explains why so many of us want to hold Bill Clinton at arm's length.

[mdmc]

22. kick