See No Evil

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

President Obama has decided citizens of the United States, and especially citizens of other countries, ought to remain blindfolded to the photographs that show (probably not) the worst torture inflicted by our military on suspected terrorists (torture ’em enough and they’ll soon all be confirmed terrorists). This is good, he says, because then people who don’t like America much can’t get any further worked up by actually seeing what it is they don’t like about us.

This dovetails pretty well with his lack of interest in seeing any of the architects of torture — guys like President-once (finally?)-removed George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their terrific lawyers — held accountable in the sort of tribunals we’ve presided over when what we like to call “the bad guys” were in charge of these things before we took over the terrible responsibility for torture and other war crimes.

But if we just close our eyes…