How to Make America Less Safe

Just do what Attorney General Eric Holder wants to do:

Reporting from Washington -- U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.

A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized" in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.

Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.

Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.

Other potentially criminal abuses have already come to light, including the waterboarding of prisoners in excess of Justice Department guidelines, and the deaths of detainees in CIA custody in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

Opening a criminal investigation is something Holder "has come reluctantly to consider," the Justice Department official said, emphasizing that Holder had not reached a final decision but noting that, "as attorney general, he has the obligation to follow the law."

Don't kid yourself. Holder is not the least bit reluctant to pursue this. He's been itching for this fight since he took office.

Holder is one of these guys who believes America is the root of all evil in the world and if we'd just stop abusing our position as leader of the free world...or better yet just stop being the leader of the free world, everything would be rainbows and unicorns.

If the CIA can be investigated and perhaps even prosecuted for using measures to protect the country that had been cleared by legal higher-ups, we'll see a repeat of what happened in the 70's and 90's when the organization was basically neutered and threats around the world multiplied because there was nobody willing to confront them either in the CIA or the administration.