Please correct my limited knowledge, but CIA employees/contractors are not military personel.

Refusing to cooperate, though possibly insubordinate, is not a federal/militarily punishable offense and though it may be considered grounds for dismissal in the business sense, it is a tenet of law that an illegal act can not be enforced.

Ahhh… so this is the point. Instead of the age old canard of attempting to legislate morality they attempted to legislate immorality. Up is down. Black is white.

What would the consequences be for any CIA agent, or official, should they have refused, even despite the OLC memo, to proceed with the torture? Is it really the case that they might have simply been drummed out of the CIA? Would the consequences have been, instead, only some derailing of their career?

Given the fact of the moral obscenity they were engaging in, it would be useful to know how much, or how little, was really at stake in any refusal they may have made. Certainly they would have been aware of the refusal of the FBI to engage in such acts, despite the memo. This makes their own falling in with the policy stand out as even less excusable.

But, two, it misses the fact that there were those in the CIA and the Pentagon that supported the use of torture, and did what they could to promote it, sending biased info about its effects and effectiveness to the higher-ups.

There was a synergy between top and lower (but still high) levels that created the torture program.

However, this issue of the disappeared and dead, and when they are also US citizens, maybe the public wakes up.

bluebutterfly gives you the name you couldn’t recall. She isn’t married to KSM (although I’ve seen discussions where there may be a family link and that the perceived link may be based on the government mis-identifying someone) and I think it is his children where there are suggestions that insects were used. And yes, it does appear Siddiqui will be in court this week. Rumors in Pakistan suggest that the youngest of Siddiqui’s children is dead.

And … thanks to Obama’s refusal to honor those treaties and investigate war crimes.

sadly, true

Appointing a small number of completely nonpartisan individuals (retired Federal judges is one suggestion I’ve seen) to investigate would be a good first step. The fact that he seems to want to sweep it all under the rug doesn’t speak well of him, IMHO, Cheney or no.