Dick Cheney Should Be On Trial

Dahlia Lithwick:

So look elsewhere for another round of the debate about the virtues of abusing prisoners in the hopes that 10 years later they will fail to divulge important information that leads only in the most circular possible routes to the eventual capture of Osama Bin Laden. My focus is what Cheney's books tells us about the rule of law in America. As Glenn Greenwald puts it:

Less than three years ago, Dick Cheney was presiding over policies that left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead from a war of aggression, constructed a worldwide torture regime, and spied on thousands of Americans without the warrants required by law, all of which resulted in his leaving office as one of the most reviled political figures in decades. But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted—and further enriched—as a Wise and Serious Statesman ...

Implicit in Greenwald's commentary is that the Obama administration is responsible for Cheney's continued legitimacy in the debate about torture, as well as the legitimacy of the debate itself. By deciding to repudiate torture while doing everything in its power to protect the torturers, the Obama administration has succeeded in elevating not only Cheney but the idea that, in America, some torturers are too important to be punished.

The fact that Dick Cheney brags about breaking U.S. and international law is just stunning.  This coward and his henchmen should be tried for torturing detainees, among other gross violations of U.S. law.  The only reasons I can figure that the Obama administration doesn't prosecute are:

#1  They don't want the divisive partisan battle (which makes them cowards) and/or
#2  They are afraid that they will also be prosecuted for violations of U.S. law (which makes them criminals).

Any other suggestions?  Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that people in power can willfully ignore the law whenever they want to, which is tyranny.