The more I think about all these torture revelations, the more I come to the realization that the blame for this is spread so far and wide, between parties, agencies, departments, leaders, and the compliant media, that we all deserve condemnation. I stopped my life and made huge financial sacrifices to speak out against my government. And it cost me a lot more than money. Most people did little or nothing. Once you start assigning blame, where do you stop?
Obama is right when he says we lost our moral bearings. He’s helping us to regain them. I think what we need is some focused, concrete, measured process. The emphasis should be on restoring and strengthening our separation of powers and our oversight. Congress needs to exert its power of investigation, including its subpoena power. The OLC lawyers need to be disbarred and/or impeached. The Justice Department’s independence from the White House has to be reasserted. The Freedom of Information Act needs to be strengthened. The Office of the Vice-President’s constitutional role must be clarified, including which branch they belong to and what their reporting requirements are. The CIA’s then-top management, including George Tenet and John McLaughlin need to be investigated right along with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their underlings. The psychiatrists that devised the torture procedures must be investigated and decertified. The psychiatric and medical personnel that took part in torture should be barred from future government employment and contracts, and ideally they should be decertified as well.
But the corruption of basic morality that was caused by the combination of 9/11-induced fear and the fear-based leadership of the Bush administration (color-coded terror charts, anyone?) was so systemic, that it’s hard to find the beginning and end of legal culpability for the war crimes that were committed, not to mention the illegal invasion that was launched.
There has to be some kind of limitation of accountability based on some sensible criteria, or we’d never stop prosecuting people. I don’t know how you find the right balance, but I think the most important thing is that the steps that are taken are steps that help strengthen our government for the future.
We can’t have an executive that doesn’t honor congressional oversight authority, or a vice-president who claims he is fourth branch of government. We can’t have a Office of Legal Counsel thinking they can legalize anything the executive wants to do without consequences. And we can’t have government employees who don’t trust what the OLC tells them. And we have to make sure that no executive ever again thinks they can ignore habeas corpus and torture people.
Some measures of disclosure (shame), accountability (prosecutions, disbarment, impeachment), and legal clarification (court rulings, legislation) are going to be necessary. You tell me what the right balance is.
Thank you for all that you do and have done.
wonderful, clear-thinking post! thank you!
imo step 1 is everything in your paragraph 2. especially restore separation of powers and oversight, plus disclosure of info, move slowly. we don’t need a vendetta, we need restoration and accountability and moving forward to transparency, sustainability and collegiality in the world of nations. we need to decide what accountability entails – aside from your paragraph 2, at this point I don’t know.
disclosure – complete
accountability – prosecution, disbarment and impeachment
legal clarification – court rulings AND legislation
We’ve got to go all the way. As for those “just following orders”, I’d leave their culpability to an impartial jury and their sentence (if any) to the judiciary. Hopefully, federal guidelines will give judges scope for leniency, perhaps probation for the foot soldiers dragged in reluctantly. If not, special legislation should provide for it, or Presidential commutation of sentence (not pardon). None of these persons should ever work for the government again.
If we don’t go all the way, then we can just STFU about Communists and “the American Way of Life”.
Agree completely with Voice. The only change I would make is that we need to STFU about the “American Way of Life” regardless. It is a condescending attitude that means nothing other than to point out our misguided arrogance.
Honor always does, Booman. I know. I sympathize. When you’re old and gray like me, you’ll wonder if it was worth it. I can’t say “yes” or “no”. It’s just the way I was raised. L’Honore di Famiglia. I am an atheist. When I am gone there will be nothing but the continuing genetic chain. I hope my descendants judge me worthy of being their ancestor.
Bush Administration and lackeys (Jailed forever).
Anyhow who tortured before the legal memos come out? Jailed (for al ong time).
OLC authors, disbarred, jailed (for a moderate length of time, permanently disbarred).
Medical/psychological doctors, license revoked, jailed. (for a moderate length of time, permanently disbarred).
CIA guys who tortured after the memos in a not-good-faith belief? Jailed (for a moderate-severe length of time). Outed.
CIA guys who tortured in a good faith belief? Black-hearted idiots. Jailed (for a relatively shorter time). After an analysis of the collateral damage, outed.
Anyhow, yes, I have been saying this (and been attacked at other places) for saying just that. IT IS ALL OUR FAULT. We are American Citizens, and this government will always on some level be OUR government. That means that we receive the plaudits when it does something right and the excoriations when it does something wrong. It means we are responsible for it–that’s what it means to be a citizen. Not in Our Name is a good sentiment, but ultimately, futile.
It may sound silly, but make sure that civics is taught in grade schools.
There is a lot of ignorance in the US and it shows during a time like this.
We have a problem with Congress. They did not want to see anything that was going on in the supposed War on Terror. They allowed this to start and continue.
We are faced with US citizens, in positions of power, having committed war crimes.
It doesn’t matter what the OLC wrote in the memos.
Torture is a war crime.
It must be investigated and prosecuted.
Every single person who was involved in these crimes must be held to account. Otherwise, it will happen again.
They all did this behind our backs because they knew it was wrong. They did these horrible things in our name. We are branded with this.
The monsters are running around justifying their actions as if that changes anything.
Anyone who is at all involved with torture is a sexual pervert. This is usually not made clear. It is an extreme form of sadism.
The laws were on the books in 2001.
The Bush administration deliberately broke the laws and covered up.
President Obama has courage. He has done the right thing.
There’s a lot more to this and I think we will find out how awful these monsters are.
I don’t know the mechanics of how the investigation and prosecution of war crimes gets done here. We haven’t had this situation before.
Only if punishment for these crimes is carried out, will it be an ounce of prevention.
If we are a decent nation, then we have to prove it by not letting anyone get away with this.
I feel the need to repeat something you wrote with added emphasis because it is not silly:
Make sure that civics is taught in grade schools.
And teach it again in high school with even more emphasis on our responsibilities as citizens to be informed — and use critical thinking — in order to make rational judgements and voting selections. Passing a mandatory Citizenship Test ought to be required before age 16, before a person can even be allowed to drop out of school.
“Most people did little or nothing. Once you start assigning blame, where do you stop?”
When ALL of the criminals are in jail.
Because that is the one and only thing that will ensure this never happens again. When these criminals know that they, too, will have to suffer the full consequences of breaking the law they will stop breaking the laws.
Or did you learn nothing from Iran-Contra recycles.
Leaving them running around free and/or giving even one pardon to political and government criminals does more damage to the nation than outing the criminals and their dirty deeds ever could.
These issues are always foremost in my mind when I hear all the clamor from the left about what Obama is supposed to be doing right now. Should he sweep in and just make policy decisions and hold hearings and etc ad nauseum to simply address what happened in the last 8 years? Or should he instead be focusing on the problem that has weighed my mind down during the Bush admin: how could it possibly have been so easy to so monstrously distort our legal system in such a short time? And what could he do to ensure that it never happens again, regardless of who assumes the presidency after him?
In other words, are we to be a nation that adheres to American principles only when we have a brilliant and honest president, or are we going to have standards that hold even when we get a dry-drunk ne’er-do-well disinterested incurious crony-loving monkey-in-a-man-suit figurehead?
I don’t care so much about what great actions or stupendous policies Obama can enact on his own as a single human individual in his capacity as President; what I want to know is what can be done to raise the bar for all time on what future office holders can get away with.
I don’t know where that balance lies, but I’m prepared to cut Obama some slack to see where this is going. If these cases are being set up in order to kick them up to SCOTUS rulings setting some definitive policies, that might be worth holding out for. Or something perhaps even better that my non-legally-trained mind can’t conceive of.
I think alot about this one too.
My first and primary response is pretty nebulous, but still important I think. Its that we need to help the public understand that we can’t afford to elect people whose main credential is that we’d like to have a beer with them.
Second one is just a bit more concrete. I think we need a serious discussion at some point about impeachment. Its our final course of redress, but I think it was “taken off the table” by the way it was used against Clinton for political purposes. We have to find a way to put it back “on the table again” for crimes such as were committed by Bush/Cheney.
A few reasons, there are an enormous number (25-30%) of the populace who will follow where the GOP leads.
Democrats in power couldn’t quite believe (and still may not) that Bush and GOP really truly didn’t give a flying fuck about laws or the system–the only thing they really understand is force and so could never get their act together.
That it was mainly being down to brown people was a icing on the cake.
The point is: laws are just paper, and unless you get the guys with the guns to support you (and can be sure they won’t side with the other guys) the system can be broken. It’s a Hobbesian monopoly of force, but it remains.
Behind the SA Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among many things, was the idea that you can’t move forward without full disclosure; almost all of white SA was at least indirectly implicated. So what do you do? at least start with full disclosure with the idea that the goal is not vengeance it is moving forward on a different foundation.
I honestly don’t know what the right balance is because what these evil people have accomplished has so badly damaged the nation, and in so many ways, it’s hard to wrap your head around it.
I mean, our national reputation is in tatters, as is our economy (in no small part due to the ongoing war). Yet at the same time a significant portion of the population still believes the Bush lies about iraq: I know otherwise sane and intelligent people who still argue that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and even if he didn’t he was a bad man who had to go. Our national intelligence has been badly damaged, and i mean that in the sense of IQ just as much as espionage.
so no, not sure what the right balance is.
The right balance is an interested and involved populace, a free press, civil servants who are protected from reprisal by that press and a by populace that doesn’t fear the truth.
How many DC people said to Ron Suskind that they would speak freely after January 20th. The press had to publish quotes without attribution for so long due to tyrannical intimidation. Many people without protection are lucky to have survived the last decade.
I really appreciate what you did to build a progressive community. Joe and Valerie Wilson set a fine example for the villagers with their dignified response to the destruction bushco wrought on their lives.
We all started with an impatient demand for frog-marching, and now thanks to people like you, it begins to look possible. Everyone knows what’s right, and we’re getting to the place where it is possible. It starts with eliminating the monopolies, especially in the media. I think we’re starting to see a change there, and you’ve had a hand in it. Making public service more important than status, and calling bullshit is important – we need a place to do that.
Your frog pond offers a peaceful oasis to everyone. The community grows – slowly slowly. It takes courage, and some growing up.
Where does it start, & where does it end.
With the constitution, including all binding treaties.
The Geneva Convention articles were written with the majority of input from the US.
The highest office holders involved, have to be investigated, if need be, prosecuted, if convicted, possibly be sentenced to death.
The leader of a gang of street thugs who goes through the legal process gets no less than the same penalty I advocate for the leaders of this torture policy, when a death occurs during the commission of a crime. The Geneva convention clearly states this.
Does no one wonder why the leader declared the constitution, “just a piece of paper”.
Once “the nation of laws” starts showing the nation that laws will be upheld, the ones who don`t seem to understand what had been ongoing will soon get their civic lesson.
There will be no justice, if the ones culpable at the very top of the chain of horrors, are not processed through the same legal system we all are subject to.
MNPundit,(upthread) has a very fair sentencing schedule guideline for those going down the rungs of responsibility.
There are also some broken or cracked rungs that may require a little special attention.
There is no path too long, to justice. That`s the law, & one the leaders swore to uphold.
Wait, I think I’ve heard this defense before:
I want to see some heads on sticks along the fence of the white house. The things that were done – and we only know the tip of the iceberg – were completely unacceptable for any civilized country to have done in their name, or anyone elses. Since we are clearly not one anymore, let’s see some heads roll. Publicly.
Ya I guess you could say I’m a little pissed off. You should see me on a bad day. Peace out.
BTW, this is not new news. We all knew what these fuckers were up to. Again, tip of the iceberg. Can you imagine the conversations these sick fucks were having?