Critic: Leahy's 'Truth Commission' a 'Whitewash'

clipped from rawstory.com Speaking to Raw Story, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a human rights attorney, says he is opposing Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy’s proposed 'Truth Commission' because it doesn’t go far enough. "We’re talking about a whitewash with Leahy. Are we some Latin American country where we don’t have a democracy robust enough to try people?" Ratner said. “[Leahy’s] essentially diffusing the issue so there’s not as much pressure on prosecution. It’s not really going to go far. [The commission is] going to divert us for a few years and we’re never going to see something come out of it.” “Cheney has openly said that he approved the water boarding memo and that he would do it again,” Ratner said, adding, “My view is you absolutely have to have prosecutions to have deterrents [for future executive power abuses].”

Ratner's not the only one who feels this way. Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley agrees -- passionately.

"It is shameful that we would be calling for this type of commission..." Turley said. "We're obligated to investigate. This whole discussion in front of the whole world is basically saying that we are not going to comply with the promise we made, not to ourselves, but to the world."

And he's right. prosecuting torture is not optional under the treaty against torture. We're required by international law to hold torturers accountable.

Either we put these people in court or we become a nation where law doesn't mean a damned thing.