Mendez, Juan - short clip - USIsFailingItsInternationalObligations
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| - | We're learning also about the methods of torture | 0:03 |
| but unfortunately we don't have much cooperation | 0:08 | |
| in the sense of truth telling by the United States. | 0:12 | |
| Because other than those two Senate Committee reports | 0:18 | |
| that I mentioned, and the second one heavily redacted | 0:21 | |
| and a summary, the United States has not come clean | 0:26 | |
| on the extent of torture. | 0:32 | |
| And, you know, the extent of torture is one aspect | 0:37 | |
| but the international standard is very clear that, you know | 0:40 | |
| the, the state not only is responsible for telling the truth | 0:45 | |
| about what happened, and of course I mean the whole truth, | 0:48 | |
| but also for prosecuting those who may be responsible. | 0:52 | |
| And there the, the standard, I mean, the | 0:56 | |
| the official position of the United States right now is | 0:58 | |
| that they are not providing an amnesty or a pardon, | 1:03 | |
| but some supposedly possibilities of prosecution are open. | 1:07 | |
| But in fact the Durham Inquiry, | 1:12 | |
| the special prosecutor that was appointed to look | 1:16 | |
| into it, ended up in a slap in the wrist saying that | 1:19 | |
| it was wrong, too bad, but not recommending any prosecution. | 1:22 | |
| And the reason that they, the official reason | 1:27 | |
| the Department of Justice has decided not to | 1:30 | |
| prosecute any of the cases that are now pretty | 1:33 | |
| well known | 1:35 | |
| is because they take the, | 1:37 | |
| and they do it in a categorical basis, | 1:41 | |
| that anybody who committed torture | 1:43 | |
| in those circumstances was under the mistaken impression | 1:46 | |
| that it was legal. | 1:51 | |
| Because of the so-called Torture Memos. | 1:52 | |
| Now the "Torture Memos" were withdrawn even | 1:55 | |
| by the Bush Administration when they were leaked. | 1:57 | |
| I mean, and at the same time they were a memo, | 1:59 | |
| I mean, that's not legal advice. | 2:03 | |
| And that even legal advice that is clearly illegal | 2:05 | |
| doesn't exempt you from responsibility. | 2:09 | |
| So, I think the United States is failing | 2:12 | |
| its international obligation to investigate, prosecute, | 2:13 | |
| and punish every case of torture. | 2:18 | |
| With this policy of looking forward and not looking back. | 2:20 |
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