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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Now we have genuine evil torturers in charge, guys who will go straight to Hell when they die, and we spend our time in desultory parsing and ironic comedy.
Outrage is passe. We need facts and dates and details. Let's start compiling. Is there a central data base for American torture evidence?
The idea of launching a totally new "solution" by formulating and creating Truth Commissions sounds about as legal and desirable as coming up with a totally new "solution" for terrorists by formulating and creating Military Commissions.
The international law is quite clear. If this country feels it cannot prosecute, it is to give the cases over to a neutral country or to the Hague for prosecution. A Truth Commission, especially one which immunizes the perpetrators in exchange for their information, is just another version of a cover-up. This isn't a political matter, and it isn't just a matter for which only the U.S. has juridiction. Torture is required to be investigated, prosecuted, and punished, and if the U.S. doesn't do it, then any other country that signed the same international treaties we did can do so.
This is just another indication that Obama and those who surround him are as capable of taking liberties with the law as the people currently in office. I don't find improvised the law any more comforting in the name of national unity than I did in the name of national security.
Obama has a choice: prosecute or hand the cases over to another sovereign state or to the Hague for prosecution. I'm real sorry he doesn't want to mar the bright shiny paint job on his presidency with the muck of real world issues, but that's life. Maybe he should run for student council if he wants a job that keeps the paint shiny.
From what I've seen about his attitude on this in Mark Benjamin's article and elsewhere, I have zero confidence at this point that the torture will even stop, or that all those tens of thousands of prisoners under U.S. control will see human rights at all. I see no indication of the wider goal of bringing the U.S. home again on international humanitarian law or international human rights law, I see less than zero hope that the U.S. will ever, ever again believe that the rights of an average person in a land far from our shores, or even the very existence of such a person, is something that an overfed, comfortable American should ever care about. I don't see Barack Obama as a message of hope, I see him as lacking the experience and the core values to do the right thing. His campaign and related Democrats email me more than once a day, and snail mail me at least once a week. These days they get only one response: No. I'm not supporting another guy who doesn't give a damn about right and wrong. Inspiring speeches don't make up for moral decrepitude.
Why would the prosecution of war criminals and torturers be a partisan witchhunt?
On one hand, this way of perceiving the situation shows how tone-deaf and morally corrupt our entire national leadership has become, as it finds itself incapable of addressing evil.
On the other hand, there are plenty of Democrats that could be indicted or implicated, as well. Key Democrats were "read into" the Bush torture program. Additionally, the use of torture by U.S. military and intelligence agencies goes back many decades, and includes both Republican and Democratic administrations.
For example, a "truth commission" would look at both the use of torture and assassination in the Phoenix Program run under the Johnson administration, as well as the current program of Bush/Cheney/Addington, etc.
This either transcends normal Beltway politics, or the corrosive effects of the evil of torture will continue to eat away at the foundations of civil society, until the moral authority of this republic is totally emptied, and like the great Soviet Union it once faced collapse spectacularly from the loss of trust and belief in a system completely compromised and bound to evil.
There are too many Democratic Party co-conspirators on these issues, so don't count on Obama to do a damn thing about it.
Frankly, this isn't surprising to me.
First of all, if Obama wins, he'll inherit a country with any number of problems. If he wants to solve them, going after the many transgressions of the Bush Administration will divide his time - and we know the Republicans will go nuclear if he tries.
Secondly, buying himself time plays to the advantage of prosecution. If after several years things are going well, we'll also have several years of more and more coming to light. Then in a later first administration or second administration, enough momentum will have built for prosecution - and a chance for Republicans to get on board.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, it gives time for more and more buy-in from the American people and groups.
I'd love to see the right thing be done. But this is a case of picking priorities, unfortunately.
I do think one thing that may come out of this is that some higher level Bush Administration officials will basically be thrown under the bus as scapegoats - by the Republicans.
I think Obama will give a good amount of leeway to his cabinet. If the AG comes to him and says "this cannot be left alone". Obama will let him loose. A different report will get a move on order.
First let me say I have only voted for a Republican once in my life as 19 year old Petty Officer Third Class while in the US Navy. That was in 1972. I have been fired from my job as an Air Traffic Controller in 1981 by Ronald Wilson Reagan. My ex wife says that I cannot blame everything on old Ronnie but I tend to do so.
Several years ago I was against impeachment of W beacuse I saw what happened during the Clinton proceedings and thought the disruption was too great and there were too many things that needed to addressed. W has the attention span of a 6 year old and heaven knows he didn't need to be distracted further. I have since changed my mind on impeachment primarily because I want a message sent. I want whomever is waiting in the wings, who evers considers dividing the country for their own gain, whomever wants to subvert the Constituion, whomever chooses to make the administration of Justice a political exercise, I want them to know that this kind of stuff will not be tolerated. I want them to know that when the people get to the bottom of this, there will be jail time, disgrace of the highest order and to know that this happened before, (remember Bush, Cheney and Rove) and to know that the full power of American legal system will fall upon their evil heads and that there is a price to pay for such disrespect for their own country and countrymen. I want them to know. Lack of political will, please
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
