Is The Torture Debate Over Bar The Shouting?
I have come around to the view that partisanship, as it has been with so many things, will be the death of a genuine debate on torture and the actions that must flow from it. The ability to conduct such a debate is a hallmark of a healthy and vigorous democracy, but America’s is neither at this juncture.
Most of the blame for that rests with the Bush administration and inextricably leads to why Barack Obama, whose advocacy for changing the culture of Washington through transparency and openness helped propel him to the presidency, has gone soft on the torture issue, notably his refusal to sanction a 9/11-type commission or other investigative body, as well as hewing to the discredited Bush line in some other instances.
Perhaps Obama the candidate was playing his liberal base for fools. But what I believe has happened is that Obama the president understands that repairing the damage he inherited from his predecessor is more important than holding administration bigs accountable at the present time. This is because to do otherwise would drive partisan rancor to deafening levels and threaten his enormously ambitious — and vitally necessary — policy agenda.
While conservatives specifically and Republicans generally share much of the responsibility for this rancor, the hands of liberals and Democrats are anything but clean, just not blood soaked as are those of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez and loyalists who professed to love America but instead did it incalculable harm.
Please click here to read a roundup of voices in the torture debate.
6 Responses to “Is The Torture Debate Over Bar The Shouting?”
But what I believe has happened is that Obama the president understands that repairing the damage he inherited from his predecessor is more important than holding administration bigs accountable at the present time. This is because to do otherwise would drive partisan rancor to deafening levels and threaten his enormously ambitious — and vitally necessary — policy agenda.
I don't know what Obama the president understands or doesn't understand, but I could not disagree with you more about what must be done to repair the damage Obama inherited from his predecessor. What are you thinking is the “damage” Obama inherited? The Bush administration's unprecedented usurping of power and wholesale overturning of the rule of law — of which the creation of this country's first official torture policy is part — IS the damage.
Nothing can go forward until this monumental perversion of justice and law is dealt with via an investigation and prosecutions. I promise you and I guarantee you that the systematic use of torture by the previous administration, not just to “stop terrorist attacks” or even, more vaguely, to “gain useful information,” but — we now learn — to establish a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that did not exist to justify an invasion and war that had already begun, will be like arsenic in the nation's blood system, poisoning everything else Obama tries to do, until it is so dealt with.
Having said that, it is not up to Barack Obama to “understand” that it's more important to work on other, more exciting and pleasant priorities than it is to hold administration “bigs” accountable “at the present time.” It's up to the Department of Justice, not Obama. But beyond even that, the larger point is that no one in the Obama administration is in a position to make a discretionary choice about whether to prosecute. Torture is illegal, Shaun. It's against half a dozen different laws, domestic and international. The Obama administration has no choice but to prosecute. These were war crimes that were committed, Shaun. I don't think we want another president who puts himself and his policy preferences above the law.
Finally, with regard to your “at the present time,” I have to ask: When would be a better time? Specifically. If not the present time, then when? When will it be convenient to hold the previous administration accountable for war crimes? If not now, when?
Kathy:
You can't have it both ways. Neither can I.
So let me ask you a simple question, no hedging allowed: Which do you want to see happen first — health-care reform or prosecution of Bush administration perps?
If your answer is prosecution, then you can kiss health-care reform goodbye.
A footnote: There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. Health-care reform can't wait.
And another: I am currently quoting something you wrote at your blog in the quote box of my blog masthead: “Torture does work if you’re trying to sell a war.”
Shaun, I'm not trying to have it both ways. I don't think you are, either. I do think you are positing a false dichotomy here. It is not either/or. If you think it is, I think it's incumbent on you to explain why, and provide support for your argument. And I don't think you can really do that. Because there is absolutely no logical or objective reason, other than just that you think it so, that Congress cannot do two things at the same time — not even to entertain the thought that maybe they could even do three or four things at the same time. And I think the American people can handle it without going insane or experiencing unmanageable anxiety and panic attacks.
Either way, the issue is not going away. That's clear, given that Pres. Obama made it clear that he wanted it to go away, and yet it's still here, getting stronger every day, taking on a life of its own. It's not prosecuting war crimes that will tear this nation apart, Shaun. It's ignoring war crimes, and conveying to the world as well as to our own people that the rule of law means as little to us now as it did under Bush.
Passing legislation and developing public policy cannot be done concurrently with enforcing the law and dismantling the Bush-era infrastructure of lawlessness? How is it that the judicial branch, the court system, and the Department of Justice all continue to function at the very same time that bills get written, debated, and voted on?
You should know when you say that there is no statute of limitations on war crimes that that is not really the point. It's only going to get harder, not easier, to hold the appropriate parties within the Bush administration responsible for their egregious violations of the law, the longer we put it off. Reasons to do so will always be there, and will become more and more compelling. “Bush left office four years ago. We've moved on. No sense stirring up old ugliness.” “Bush left office eight years ago…” with the rest of the sentence the same. Dick Cheney has a serious heart condition; he could be dead in four or more years. That's not a wish; it's just a fact (not a fact that he'll be dead; it's a fact that it's a better than even possibility given his health problems). So then we can say, “Look, Dick Cheney was the principal architect of this program, and he's dead. What's the sense of going back over it now?” Any number of major figures in this horror show could be dead, could be seriously ill, could be in any of a dozen or more different scenarios that would make it more difficult or impossible to prosecute them.
There will never, ever, ever be a good time to acknowledge that war crimes were committed by the Bush 43 administration, and that those responsible need to be prosecuted. The president will always have huge and pressing issues on his plate, because as Obama likes to say, if the problems were easy, someone else would already have taken care of them. Admit it, Shaun — you can't possibly know, nor can I or anyone else, what crises will be pounding us in the future that we can't see now.
There will never be a good time.
Does a bank robber get to say, “I don't have time to go to court now; I'm busy getting a degree”? Do any prosecutors you know of say that they can't investigate and prosecute a murder because they've got too much on their plate and it will tear the city apart? Do we say to an arsonist, “We're busy now, we'll get to you when it's closer to the statute of limitations on your crime”?
The real problem here, Shaun, is not that the president has too many important things to do right now. The problem is that the president does not want to deal with war crimes because it's unpleasant and it might make people mad at him. And that is equally true, in my opinion, of most if not all of those who say that this is not the right time to enforce the law on war crimes. It's very, very, very uncomfortable to think about getting through something like this. No one wants it. No one wants to admit that it happened, even though reality demands that we do admit that. We want to avoid it. That's the issue here, not health care reform legislation.
Thank you for quoting my line about torture. That's flattering. Truly.
I agree with Kathy. Our country can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Our country has repeatedly shown that it can handle multiple complex and divisive issues at the same time.
Now, whether the end results are acceptable, depends on HOW our country handles the two issues of getting to the truth and revamping healthcare , and probably others , at the same time.
By God, if we can start a war that cost us over 4,000 of our finest, then surely we should be able to–we have the right to–find out how and why and by whom that war fomented and concocted.
Just a small comment on Kathy's excellent comments and with respect to:
“So then we can say, “Look, Dick Cheney was the principal architect of this program, and he's dead. What's the sense of going back over it now?” Any number of major figures in this horror show could be dead, could be seriously ill, could be in any of a dozen or more different scenarios that would make it more difficult or impossible to prosecute them.”
We are finding ourselves in a similar position as contemplated by Kathy on meting justice and getting closure on the Holocaust crimes, with just about all the perps dead–some after paying for their crimes, some not.
Example:
One of the reasons given for “leaving Demjanjuk alone,” of course is his state of health and advanced age.
We are finding ourselves in a similar position as contemplated by Kathy on meting justice and getting closure on the Holocaust crimes, with just about all the perps dead–some after paying for their crimes, some not.
Pinochet is another example of that. Thousands of Chileans were tortured, murdered, and disappeared after the CIA-sponsored coup on September 11, 1973, and what happened to Pinochet? By the time anyone tried to do anything, he was a doddering old man. There were no war crimes trials.
The Armenian genocide is another apt example. Almost 100 years later and it still isn't “a good time” to use the word genocide to describe that genocide.