Yoo and Bybee

I do not understand how we can let war criminals loose. It is appalling.

John Yoo and Jay Bybee were absolved from any responsibility for their infamous "torture memos." Why? Apparently because the investigators of the case didn't give enough credit to the tense atmosphere right after 9/11.

Okay. And that means they're not responsible for their actions....how?

Sorry, but people are just as responsible for their actions when under stress as when they have nothing on their minds. It doesn't make you any less responsible for what you did.

From the NYTimes article-
"The report quotes Patrick Philbin, a senior Justice Department lawyer involved in the review, as saying that because of the urgency of the situation, he had advised Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum, despite what he saw as Mr. Yoo’s aggressive and problematic interpretation of the president’s broad commander-in-chief powers in trumping international and domestic law."

"Okay, so I knew this wasn't exactly Constitutional, and I also knew this might not be the best thing to give the President, but I also thought that it might do...something...."

Okay. I see how this logic makes some sort of sense. In Wonderland.

From the same article-
"“While I have declined to adopt O.P.R.’s findings of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to author opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, view of executive power while speaking for an institutional client,” Mr. Margolis said."

And yet it was, apparently, not enough for them to actually say- "This guy is guilty."

When we let people like this off the hook, people who don't even have enough respect for the Constitution to consult it before giving the President power, what is our rule of law coming to?