I'm appalled that the man I voted for has decided to break the law by harboring torturers.
There are consequences...
We are signatory of international treaties, our law now, which makes clear that both actual doers and those that gave the orders must be prosecuted. Perhaps the legal opinions offered by the last administration's incompetent lawyers will allow for mitigation in sentencing, not that they should do so, but they must be prosecuted.
President Obama is actually arguing that 'The torturers were just following orders' ... where have we heard that before??? Perhaps we should ask how it is that our interrogation specialists are so ignorant of their responsibilities to uphold basic human rights embodied in actual law, easily understood law by the way? Since when is incorrect, implausible, and self-serving legal advice considered immunization from law enforcement? I have zero sympathy for the individuals involved.
President Obama has decided that prosecutions, as per the decades old laws, will not take place.
He excuses it. He allows it. He ignores it. He supports all of those that have done it. He supports the lawyers that created the exemptions, one of whom is currently a Federal Judge(Bybee)! In fact, he supports all of those that have done it anywhere in the world, since his reasons are the same reasons everyone in the world uses. He is IT. This is a binary proposition here. YES or NO.
A law that is not enforced is not real. America has just set torture as a superior-to-all-laws policy.
Our constitutional-law-professor/President has also set administrative precedent that legal opinions, no matter how screwy, hidden, and poorly vetted, now immunize all actions of guv employees.
Finally, this formulation of our President cannot be about going forward from here. He's effectively working to institutionalize the right of a President to re-implement a torture regime at any time. He supports no law which would prevent that. And therefore, President Obama supports torture in the future as well.
This means that as of now our President is a torturer, period.
I'm so ashamed of the man I voted for as well as all of the other Americans that follow him in this.