George,

President Obama's reaction to the details of the Bush approved interrogation tactics (AKA TORTURE) is troubling.

It seems he, along with other members of his administration, want to give the CIA interrogators a pass because the Justice Department had given "legal" authorization to the techniques.

This is nuts!

It smacks of the Nazi monsters at Nuremberg saying "I was only following orders. "

If "intelligence" officers at the CIA and other government agencies were not aware that "waterboarding," for example, has been considered torture since the Inquisition, and were incapable of exercising moral judgment and disobeying these immoral, "legalistic," justifications as was the "just following orders" excuse so poignantly and forcefully dismissed at the War Crimes trials at Nuremberg, in 1946, than, in my opinion they are not entitled to the "umbrella" of protection now offered by CIA head, Leon Panetta or others in the Obama Administration.

Richard Armitage, if we are to take him at his word, said, forcefully, that had he known waterboarding was officially sanctioned, he would have resigned.

Even if President Obama has the best of intentions by "putting this in the past," it will not reflect favorably on our nation's reputation for "justice for all."

Punishment is not what I personally seek. I feel we must "out" this nightmare as clearly and as forcefully as we have condemned other horrors in our nation's past--such as slavery, My Lai, segregation, lynchings and whatever else we will not hide or tolerate.

The thought of a criminal of the level of John Yoo (tenured law professor at UC Berkley) and his ilk walking the streets of America, proud of their devious, criminal behavior of giving legal cover to Bush's "alternative set of procedures," makes my blood boil!

This stain on our nation must somehow be expunged. Walking away from it diminishes us as a nation to which all other nations should aspire.

Harry Tenney (Electronic mail, April 17, 2009)