Contradictions

President Obama should be credited for releasing the CIA memos involving torture in the Bush administration. It sheds light on some of the most cruel and inhumane practices ever committed in the name of the United States under the guise of protecting the homeland.

However, Attorney General Eric Holder is all wrong when he says he declines to prosecute the CIA agents who were involved in the torture of suspected al-Qaeda combatants. I've heard all of the reasoning and rationale for this decision - the nation had just been savagely attacked on September 11, 2001, we didn't know what al-Qaeda was capable of, information involving future terrorist plots had to be extracted post-haste, the CIA agents were acting in good faith based on legal reasoning, and so on. None of them measure up. By treating these prisoners with the same cavalier attitude al-Qaeda showed toward the victims of 9/11, we descended to their level. We violated several of our own laws and likely violated international law, and we made ourselves hypocrites in the eyes of the world. These agents need to be prosecuted, and their superiors - those who approved the use of torture - should be given justice. Even an attack as horrible as 9/11 doesn't justify or excuse this policy.

Twenty years from now, Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA members for torture and simply move on and not do it again may be seen in the same light as Gerald Ford's pardoning of Richard Nixon for Watergate, but I doubt it.