ACLU Recommends Pardoning Torture?

[WasatchMan]

Recently the ACLU, specifically Anthony Romero (executive director), came out and said that he thinks Obama should pardon people responsible for the torture policy under Bush (including Bush and Cheney).  His argument is basically that if you are not going to do anything else, you might as well pardon them and label them as criminals and to avoid repeating it.

 

To me this logic is rather insane.  For one, they still would not be convicted of a crime, so it would still all be alleged and they wouldn't even technically be criminals. Furthermore, there are multiple interpretations of what a pardon could mean.  One possible interpretation would be that the torture was justified because of war, and therefore the extreme nature of this situation was why Obama gave the pardons.  To think that history will remember this by the ACLU's interpretation of what the pardon actually meant is nuts, IMO.

 

What do you think?

 

Here is a video of Anthony Romero discussing it with Rachel Maddow:

http://youtu.be/WPEJl_qOtsw

[J-William]

 

It's a ridiculous claim, especially when Obama runs the justice department and could direct them to prosecute under relevant statutes, or he could refer it to international courts, and being the president I suspect he could carry a lot of weight...

 

But that won't ever happen, so maybe in a world where that ain't gonna happen this is the best alternative... But I don't think it's the job of the head of the ACLU to advocate for pragmatic solutions.