CIA Memo's & Obama's Kangaroo Court

Kangaroo court

"An unfair trial in which the rights of the accused and precepts of justice are ignored and the outcome is usually known beforehand." (Cornell Univ. Law School)

Obama's unnecessary release of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel memo's to the CIA offering legal guidance on harsh interrogation techniques, and his comments that "We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.", are nothing less than a summary judgement of "guilty of torture" on the Bush Administration by the Obama Kangaroo Court.

In addition to Obama's tactic of unilaterally deciding what torture is (face slaps, pushing, sleep deprivation, waterboarding) as yet again, another attempt to disparage George Bush, his action does great harm to his own, and future Administrations.  The revelation of these tactics effectively makes permanent his Executive order suspending them.  As a result we now have the Army Field Manual tactics, intended only to be used by our military as a first line of interrogation on captured uniformed military opponants, as the only source of interrogation tactics available to use with hardened and determined professional terrorists.

Despite his statement that CIA interrogators who followed those guidelines would not be prosecuted, Obama's action will have a chilling and crippling effect on the CIA's effectiveness in extracting critical information from our adversary's, who now know exactly what to expect in their interrogation (they won't even be slapped, pushed, kept awake or waterboarded). What CIA operative in the future would be comfortable following new guidelines that could themselves be easily declared illegal by the next antagonistic Administration, potentially subjecting them to prosecution.  I'm sure the guys who behead, stone, eviscerate, poison and blow people up, will be severely anxiety-ridden and reduced to fingernail biting while in the fetal position, if facing interrogation by our new CIA tickle interrogators, Rocky and Bullwinkle.  

Obama's action in releasing these memos will create the exact same institutional timidity that led up to our inability to secure effective information prior to 9-11-2001.  And unfortunately, probably with the same results.