[nozzlegear]

I strongly disagree with that equivalency. Obama should have pursued accountability instead of pardoning them like he did, but I do not agree that it puts him in the same moral category. Your framing shifts the argument from "Obama maybe deserves some scrutiny here" to "Obama belongs in the same cells with the torturers."

You're collapsing several degrees of responsibility with this lazy equivalence, and minimizing the heinousness of the people who actually designed and executed torture programs.

[masfuerte]

The world has no shortage of evil bastards. The only thing that restrains them is the knowledge that they may be held to account. Obama undermined that.

"Don't worry, we've got your back. If your country asks you to do evil, we won't hold you to account. So go right ahead."

Who is worse? The criminal or the corrupt judge?