The Department of Justice is floating trial balloons about—finally—investigating torture. BUT, only those actual torturers who went beyond the parameters of the torture memos, so-called rogue torturers, rather than people who tortured by the rules.

This means, if the current UFOs are accurate, that no one who developed the policy or ordered it carried out, and no one who was a good, rule-abiding torturer has to stay up nights wondering if the shit hammer is going to fall .

Personally, since torture is illegal according to the US Code and treaties  that the US has ratified, making them the law of the land, and because torture is wrong ethically and practically and morally, I would like to see that hammer fall, and hard. To that end, I wrote a letter to Attorney General Holder (AskDOJ@usdoj.gov): 

Secretary Holder:
 
In the trial balloons that have been floated in the last few days, the consensus reported is expressed by this quote from the Washington Post: "an inquiry would apply only to activities by interrogators, working in bad faith, that fell outside the 'four corners' of the [torture] memos. . . . The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation."
 
This has been the content of whatever discussion has come from the Obama Administration about examing the various war crimes that have already been admitted by, among others, Dick Cheney.
 
This is disturbing on two counts:
1) It establishes a two-tiered system of justice, one in which the policy makers are immune and the low-level people get punished, as happened at Abu Ghraib.
 
2) It completely ignores our treaty obligations (Convention on Torture, Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg Principles) and US Code 18, Part I, Chapter 113C.
 
All parties involved in these crimes *must* be held accountable. Not investigating, and appropriately prosecuting, the involved people—regardless of their status, or position in government—makes this Administration complicit in the crimes. And, while the continued lawlessness seems to be at least condoned among those in Congress and this Administration so far, and among the elite so-called journalists in Wahington, the public, and history, will judge the Bush and Obama Adminsitrations very harshly, indeed, if the acts of the former and the lack of action by the latter is what is left to judge them on.
 
I urge you to appoint a truly independent prosecuter whose only mandate is to follow the evidence—for *all* possible participants—where it leads.
 
Thank you