Trying to Put a Period on One of the Darkest Chapters in US History

Senate Votes To Outlaw Torture from the Huffington Post
"In a landmark showing, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to outlaw the practice of torture and solidify a noncoercive method of intelligence interrogation, indicating a firm departure from the years of the Bush-era torture program -- a period that many have characterized as one of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history."

Paging Mr. Cheney! Paging Mr. Cheney!

Obama Administration Faces Mounting Pressure To Answer For Torture from Huffington Post
"In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch Friday, human rights group Amnesty International pressed the Justice Department to revisit its decision not to prosecute former officials from the CIA and the George W. Bush administration for their involvement in the agency’s post-9/11 torture program."
I'm going to quibble about the headline: Obama has nothing to "answer for" regarding torture.  The real question is: Will anyone from the BUSH YEARS have to "answer for" torture?  What about it, Mr. Cheney?

Faster Pace of Releases at Guantánamo

Obama Nears Goal for Guantánamo With Faster Pace of Releases from the New York Times
"Now 127 prisoners remain at Guantánamo, down from 680 in 2003, and the Pentagon is ready to release two more groups of prisoners in the next two weeks..."

What the "Old Hands" Have to Say about the Bush Torture Program

Why torture doesn't work: A definitive guide (Ryan Cooper) from The Week 
"Dick Cheney says torture is effective. But the Nazis (and the Soviets and the Viet Cong and the Stasi) would disagree."

Amateur Hour in America's Torture Chamber

Our New Politics of Torture (Mark Danner, interviewed by Hugh Eakin) from the New York Review of Books
"What I think is strictly speaking new is, first, how amateurish the torture program was. It was really amateur hour, beginning with the techniques themselves, which were devised and run by a couple of retired Air Force psychologists ...  They had no expertise in terrorism or counterterrorism, had never interrogated al-Qaeda members or anyone else for that matter. ... The second great revelation is the degree to which the CIA claimed great results, and did so mendaciously."

Should Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & CIA Officials Be Tried for Torture?

War Crimes Case Filed in Germany from Democracy Now
"Cheney’s claim that he would approve torture again highlights a key question: Are top officials above the law, and will the impunity of today lead to more abuses in the future?"

What to Do With the Authors of American Torture

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses from the Editorial Board of the New York Times
"These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture. So it is no wonder that today’s blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were. As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal."

The Case for Prosecuting Torturers

Dick Cheney Makes a Great Case for Prosecuting Torturers (Julliet Lapidos) from the New York Times
"Did any of the details from the report “plant any seed of doubt?” asked Mr. Todd. “Absolutely not,” Mr. Cheney answered. What about the fact that “25 percent of the detainees” turned out to be innocent? “I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective” answered Mr. Cheney, meaning “to get the guys who did 9/11.”"

The Cheney Defense Campaign

Fox Catches Dick Cheney Lying About Torture (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"The former vice president's defense of brutal CIA interrogations is falling apart under scrutiny."

Torture and Accountability: What About the Doctors?

‘Do No Harm’: When Doctors Torture (Julie Beck) from the Atlantic
"Medical officers used their knowledge to aid and abet the CIA's interrogation tactics."

TODAY'S BIG NUGGET: Prosecutions Over US Torture - May Not Be Up To US Authorities

UN Expert Calls For Prosecution Over U.S. Torture from the Huffington Post 
""In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency," he said."