By David Swanson
These are the top 10 reasons it makes sense that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is waiting for a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in the Department of Justice prior to impeaching federal judge and former torture and war facilitator Jay Bybee.
10. It could turn out that writing memos pretending to legalize torture was the ethical thing to do, or at least that doing so in the future is a recommendation of Obama’s task force on interrogations.
9. Claiming to give presidents the power to legally launch aggressive wars might turn out to be professional if not responsible. It’s just not Congress’s place to say.
8. If you impeached Bybee you’d have to subpoena him. If you subpoenaed him and didn’t have the nerve to send the Capitol Police after him, you’d have to ask the Justice Department to go get him, and that might interfere with editing the OPR report to accommodate Bybee’s wishes.
7. Refusing to impeach Cheney worked out beautifully, and refusing to lock up Rove has achieved wonderous results. So probably leaving Bybee alone at least until an election is closer is for the best.
6. Congress should not encourage petty vengeance against the equivalent of fraternity pranks (hooding, shackling, beating, sleep depriving, electroshocking, water torturing, freezing, kicking, short-sheeting, eyebrow shaving, tossing water balloons, etc.).
5. If the statutes of limitations expire, was there really any torture?
4. Imagine what else they could have charged Monica Conyers with if they really had to.
3. The OPR might release the report in small declassified bits over a period long enough for most of us to die or at least forget that we didn’t always torture.
2. The OPR might release this report the same day Rick Astley dies hiking in Argentina.
1. Change is on the way.