Torture
The AP reports that Obama insiders have stated that there will be no criminal investigations of Bush administration officials for human rights abuses or war crimes.
Instead, it seems that the president-elect favors something in line with a truth-and-reconciliation model:
Obama has committed to reviewing interrogations on al-Qaida and other terror suspects. After he takes office in January, Obama is expected to create a panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission to study interrogations, including those using waterboarding and other tactics that critics call torture. The panel’s findings would be used to ensure that future interrogations are undisputedly legal.
The article quotes Robert Litt, a former Clinton official in the Justice Department, offering the reasoning that is likely to win the day:
“Both for policy and political reasons, it would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time hauling people up before Congress or before grand juries and going over what went on,” Litt said at a Brookings Institution discussion about Obama’s legal policy. “To as great of an extent we can say, the last eight years are over, now we can move forward — that would be beneficial both to the country and the president, politically.”
Opposing this logic is Michael Rater, a professor at Columbia Law school, who argues that
“The only way to prevent this from happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the price for it,” Ratner said. “I don’t see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they are not held accountable.”
It is a certainty that Litt’s argument will prevail. However, if I were Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo, or Addington, I would not step foot outside of the United States for the rest of my lifetime.
What a great country we have. We’ve decided that it is acceptable that a single person has the ability to order the capture of individuals wherever they might be on the globe, hold them prisoner indefinitely with no access to a legitimate court, and subject them to torture. There is no other word for this than absolute and abject tyranny.
I was really hoping for a war-crimes trial so that I could see Dick Cheney deliver this line from the witness chair:
You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. . . . And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like Honor, Code, Loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “Thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled too!
