By Debra Sweet 
CIA Torture Report to be Released
The release of the long-anticipated CIA report, quashed since 2006 by the Bush regime, and then postponed several times by the Obama administration, is set for Monday August 24. It’s been leaked. Newsweek and the Guardian UK, "Bombshell report on CIA interrogations is leaked" report the CIA used mock executions to terrorize detainees through threatening the use of pistols and electric drills.
It’s reported that the Attorney General will make a decision in the next few days on whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture. The New York Times analyzed the problem Eric Holder is up against, having been instructed by Barack Obama not to look "backward" while saying "we do not torture":
"Mr. Holder has told associates he is weighing a narrow investigation, focusing only on C.I.A. interrogators and contract employees who clearly crossed the line and violated the Bush administration’s guidelines and engaged in flagrantly abusive acts. But in taking that route, Mr. Holder would run two risks. One is the political fallout if only a handful of low-level agents are prosecuted for what many critics see as a pattern of excess condoned at the top of the government. The other is that an aggressive prosecutor would not stop at the bottom, but would work up the chain of command, and end up with a full-blown criminal inquiry into the intelligence agencies – just the kind of broad, open-ended criminal investigation the Obama administration says it wants to avoid."
Clearly, the interests of the people living in this country who care about humanity are not conflicted at all. The war crimes should be prosecuted! The CIA agents, contractors, and the lawyers and "deciders" who were in the White House should all face justice.
CBS News also weighs the danger for the Obama administration in prosecuting, and in failing to prosecute. Even the New York Times is now allowing a debate among lawyers on whether John Yoo should be prosecuted. This issue is not dead. Those of us who’ve been calling for an end to the US torture state are right, and we should be more insistent than ever.