I’m troubled.

First, Obama decided that those responsible for torture during the Bush administration should not be charged. I’m still not sure what to think of this, but I think that the safest choice — in terms of not wrongly punishing people — is to forgive those responsible for torture now that the movement to end the use of torture by the United States is in swing. To do otherwise would seem like retroactive law in practice, even though this may not be true technically.

However, I think that things have now gone too far. Obama seems to have decided that the public should be shielded from evidence of torture. The reason for this is that it would fuel “anti-Americanism” and lead to more violence. And it probably would, but is this enough of a reason?

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