We’ve heard the same refrain from so many others over the decades–especially from Nazi Germany after the war: We were just following orders, said the people lower down the ladder as they claimed they did what they did only because it was mandated by the people higher up the ladder.

That is essentially the argument now being used to shield CIA interrogators from being charged with criminal activity for taking part in torture sessions at secret agency prisons around the world–all set up to help wage Bush’s war on terror.

What is surprising to some is that President Obama is now saying that there will be no prosecution of these CIA operatives.

Said Obama, ” The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world…We must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.”

Run that by me again.

We must provide people who were engaged in clearly illegal activity with the confidence that they can do their jobs?  I’d say they pretty much had all the confidence they could possible use!

Human rights groups, rightly, are giving Obama the thumbs down on this one.

Talking to Reuters, the head of the ACLU said, “There can be no more excuses for putting off criminal investigations of officials who authorized torture, lawyers who justified it and interrogators who broke the law.”

He’s right.

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