Instead, they get cushy think tank and consultancy jobs as a reward for their evil 'service'.
That might finally make a dent in getting rid of capital punishment once and for all.
You can't fix violence with more violence, you have to fix violence with cleverness.
They are effectively a rogue criminal organization with the power of state protection at this point. Making an example of the criminal acts we do have knowledge of seems the only effective recourse short of dismantling the CIA entirely.
If enough people shout about the emperor's nakedness enough times, eventually it will jump the gap from something everyone knows, to common knowledge[1] (something everyone knows that everyone knows). They will have to fall into disrepute, and that won't happen by us being quiet about it.
Right now, I think most people in the US think of the US as a place with the rule of law, and equal application thereof. The CIA's well-documented activities illustrate plainly that that is not true. The well-publicized summary executions of unarmed people by the police without trial or jury are getting noticed more often, as well. We can say it in plain words, often, to bring it to the level of common sense.
The vast, vast majority of people would like to live in a place with the rule of law, applied fairly and equally to all people. An even higher percentage would be on board without the rule of law, just so long as no special connected elites get unique treatment and free taxpayer money. This is a big tent.
There will, of course, be a subset of the population at all times that wants gun-toting, black-bag Jack Bauer 007 "license to kill" daddy to run around and exercise their best super reliable adult judgement and eschew the entire time-consuming nonsense of arrest and human rights and trial and just put a blowtorch to the balls of the Completely Obviously Guilty Bad Terrorist Guy immediately, as we have immortalized in so much of our entertainment. But I remain resolute in my belief that those people are a small minority of human beings, and are shrinking every generation. There isn't a month of my life that goes by that I am not beaming proud of the human race that we even gave the fucking nazis full on courtroom trials after WW2. If that doesn't show that we can absolutely get there on a long enough timescale, I don't know what does.
The usual tropes apply:
- sunlight is the best disinfectant
- teach, listen, learn
- treat others as you wish to be treated
- always stand up for the truth
We've been improving for thousands of years. In another few we'll get there yet.
[1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/inflation-and-the-common-knowl... https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
10% of the population needs to call for the execution of all torturers in the CIA before the zeitgeist's illusion of justice painted over black ops can be dismantled. If radicals only advocated for "CIA is bad and needs to be reigned in" that doesn't create enough cognitive dissonance for the general public to reflect on their attitudes and actually effect change.
Radicals advocating for the superlative solution create cover for moderates to take compromise action.
I think it would be good for society if CIA torturers would be executed, but I'd be shocked if the moderate politicians in power had the courage to actually do so.
In addition to being barbaric, it also has the tiny problem of being ineffective. You can't execute an ideology, you have to out-meme it.
The concept of an above-the-law class has a long and beloved history because us social human beings seem to really love (and require!) having a very clear and well-defined social hierarchy within which one can orient oneself. Most of us would even prefer clarity about the hierarchy and where one resides within it to elevated position within a murkier hierarchy.
You can't get rid of a monarch just by stripping them of their power and installing a parliament; the poor will keep polishing their crowns and spoons for free until the cows come home. You literally have to construct a better meme to replace the fundamental concept. You'll have to out-James Bond James Bond (and Batman and Superman and Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne and friends).
I used to think that the US constitution was an explicitly fraudulent meme promoted by the ruling class (I think Washington was the largest landowner in the colonies?) to usurp, and maybe it was, but this Lincoln quote made me think a little more deeply about it:
> As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Even Lincoln pointed out we were full of shit. I suppose he's right that it's better to fake it 'till you make it than to not give a shit at all.
I think 'never advocate for violence, even against more-violent greater evils' is a flawed rule because it leads to the compromise result landed closer to in favor of evil. We need the radical voices to drag the center towards effective action. (And torture is so superlatively evil that I have no moral qualms advocating for the humane execution of those who can be proven to have engaged in or ordered it).
Steady! We must not become our enemy. We achieve peace and justice through peaceful and just means, or not at all!
The idea that we are 'above' them is only possible because propaganda and secrecy keeps the horrors of what our country does out of the zeitgeist.
As long as former torturers get to be pundits on TV talk shows, I see no path to fixing this. We need someone courageous and with power to start enforcing the existing laws against these people to the maximum or the problem is only going to get worse.
That’s exactly what your alleged enemy thinks.