February 13, 2009

Land of Torture Reparations

Nobody is above the law. But maybe, just maybe, the prudent thing is to find out the exact details of what's happened, first, before rushing into criminal indictments of George W. Bush and his former senior staff. In that light, for example, it doesn't make much sense to glibly disparage ideas of a "truth commission" that are being kicked about: anything that brings greater transparency is to be encouraged. To get a sense of how things stand I turned once again to Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. It was very kind of Professor Nowak to talk with me and again I find myself persuaded by his logic. Total runtime twenty five minutes.