Obama and torture

As we all know, one of the first things President Obama did upon entering office was to ban torture. Bravo, Mr. President. A truly honorable decision.

However, there has recently been a problem with Gitmo about the issue of torture.

Obama has appeared to say that the officials ordering the torture would not be prosecuted for their actions.

While I admire and love pretty much everything Obama has done, this is one subject that I have thoroughly disagreed with him on. The people who carried it out should not be prosecuted to full extent (unless they ordered it done). I imagine they need full psychiatric counselling to deal with such horrors. The nightmares that they will have to live with the rest of their lives is more than enough punishment.

The people that ordered it though... they knew what they were doing. Some even adamantly supported it (like Cheney). Those people should be prosecuted for this to the full extent of the law. Torture is never excusable, never. I always say there are worse things than death, and this would be the worst of the worst.

But... but I had an interesting feeling about this. Obama has said in the past that he prefers to have all the information about a subject before he speaks about it. In the past, he'd kind of blown off the questions by giving incomplete answers. Not today. Today he has left the option of prosecution of those individuals responsible for the torture of all those people open. Put that nut Cheney first on the list for prosecution. And lock him away for a long time.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/21/obama.memos/index.html

And so Obama has surprised me yet again. And yet again, he's doing whats right no matter what the protest.

I like this man.

Why would it ever be a question as to whether torture is wrong. Its wrong. Period. The end does not justify the means. Ever.