http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/ronald-reagan-on-torture/ Commentary and analysis at the intersection of international law and politics Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:32:42 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/ronald-reagan-on-torture/comment-page-1/#comment-167 Simon Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:02:38 +0000 http://anthonyclarkarend.com/?p=559#comment-167 it's a great question. What's amazing is how far America to the right America has moved from a moral perspective. But while the practices condoned by the Bush adminstration were abhorrent, I believe that US policy, especially in PK and AFG would have been better served in this case by "moving on" and not making the memos public. Their release has opened a pandora's box which might well end up with some very counter-productive consequences. Among them, providing Islamic militants with an opportunity to score more propaganda victories against the US, at a very critical time in our battle with them, and opening up the possibility of inadequate and inconsistent response by the United States if there are no prosecutions. Finally, the revelations in the memos may create painful divisions among the American people, many of whom will be dubious or downright opposed to prosecutions of Americans for harsh interrogations of those involved in the 9/11 attacks. it’s a great question. What’s amazing is how far America to the right America has moved from a moral perspective. But while the practices condoned by the Bush adminstration were abhorrent, I believe that US policy, especially in PK and AFG would have been better served in this case by “moving on” and not making the memos public. Their release has opened a pandora’s box which might well end up with some very counter-productive consequences. Among them, providing Islamic militants with an opportunity to score more propaganda victories against the US, at a very critical time in our battle with them, and opening up the possibility of inadequate and inconsistent response by the United States if there are no prosecutions. Finally, the revelations in the memos may create painful divisions among the American people, many of whom will be dubious or downright opposed to prosecutions of Americans for harsh interrogations of those involved in the 9/11 attacks.

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