Uncle Ron, What Should We Do?

Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

It's getting harder and harder to deny the inevitable conclusion that there is going to be a messy shitstorm in this country. The excerpt above is from Glenn Greenwald, in an atypically short piece shredding of Charles Krauthammer's column from The Washington Post today.

Obama isn't helping either. Every time he opens his mouth on this subject things get muddier and muddier. The only good I see coming out of his comments is that there is no real news to talk about, and yet there is a huge story hanging out there called 'Torture'. The media abhors a vacuum, and so the digging goes on and new information continues to come to light.

As long as Obama keeps feeding the beast and the e-ink is spilled in commentary, the real world will sit and wait.