it's perfectly evident that the bush administration worked toward a culture of torture and an arbitrary widespread internment system. a number of agencies and branches of the armed forces and intelligence were doing this at abu ghraib, at guantanamo, in afghanistan, in black sites her and there. they were, among other things, trying to force confessions to the effect that saddam was involved in 9.11, a year before the iraq invasion, in order to justify it. (at the same time they were pressuring intelligence agencies to produce intelligence to that effect, interpreting whatever "intelligence" there was in an utterly tendentious way; leaking valerie plame in order to shut up her husband on that matter, etc.) you've got cheney, rice, rumsfeld (in particular), and then the lawyers: alberto gonzales, jay bybee, john yoo, etc. in my opinion, all of these people should be spotlighted and prosecuted, mercilessly.

but i do not, do not accept the apparent consensus that the grunts who actually did the work are innocent and should not be prosecuted. no. people are responsible for their actions, even under orders, even after memos. not to prosecute them is...to insult them. to say they are people without moral autonomy, without conscience, that they are not, if you like, created in the image of god; it is to treat them as inanimate objects. if we're ever going to be a decent people then "jimmy told me to" just can't be an excuse. and the state, the president, the command structure, the lawyers: they are all just jimmies, just people: not abstract functions: not mesmerists, not operating people like marionettes. of course if we thought of them as just people, there could be no state. right?