Prosecute Our War Criminals

Most Americans believe that the United States is still the brightest beacon of human rights in the world. But that reputation has been severely undermined by the Bush Administration’s deliberate torture of detainees (officially revealed by the Senate Intelligence Report) and the Obama Administration’s refusal to prosecute the offenders.

This past June, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint appeal to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these crimes. Petitions signed by over 111,000 people were attached. Steven Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said, “The Justice Department— and the Obama Administration—are effectively burying the Senate torture report…effectively handing out a ‘get out of jail free’ card to all those responsible for torture. The message to every would-be torturer is that they will get away with it because the Justice Department will turn a blind eye.”