The Government Investigates U.S. Torturers (the Spanish Government, that is)

Rachel Maddow has been calling for it, along with Jonathan Turley, the constitutional lawyer and MSNBC pundit. What is it? The prosecution of those responsible in the Bush administration for giving a flimsy legal basis for the torturing of thousands of "enemy combatants". Finally, there is going to be an investigation as reported in the New York Times, but it doesn't emanate from the Obama administration. The preliminary moves towards prosecution are coming from Spain.

A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

The case, against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was “highly probable” that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants.