Shake the Investigation Tree
Spencer, you are right about fantasy baseball. My own sense is that for an official like Addington or Yoo to come anywhere close to indictment, someone in the inner circle would have to flip, with the documents to prove it. Maybe what was divulged would change the dicey politics of a prosecution. (Because the upside for an Obama administration looks small compared to the softie downside for Democrats that Jane and Christopher sketch.) But in the more likely event that none of this happens, my question is how much energy the next president should spend on a difficult and inevitably recrimination-filled investigation. It would be cast as partisan and vengeful, and I don't see how any taking of the high road could really change that. There's the consideration Jane raises about whether such accountability is just given the circumstances, which I think of as the shadow cast by the show 24 (another great Jane topic!)
This is where Stuart's truth commission comes in: we learn the facts, or more of them, without the sharp consequences and political rifts. I see the appeal. But I'm not quite ready to go there yet. I want the next president to first have the chance to give the investigation tree a few good hard shakes. Let's see what comes out before we hand out the free passes. If Jose Rodriguez in fact ordered the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes that should have been entered into evidence in some of the Guantanamo cases, and handed over to the 9/11 Commission, then that's the kind of bad act a prosecutor might be able to sink his teeth into. Maybe that seems small bore, or unfair to the spies. But it's how cases are made.
You have got to be kidding. In a letter to Senator Levin on 9/12/2008, Condi Rice admitted that she participated in a number of meetings in the White House where specific CIA interrogation techniques were discussed. We know that those discussion included waterboarding. Decisions were made and recorded. All of the participants knew or should have known that, no matter what John Yoo said, waterboarding is torture and a violation of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law. Every participant in those meetings had a positive duty to act to prevent the waterboarding. Instead, they engaged in a conspiracy to commit torture and cover it up. They are all guilty of war crimes. No further evidence needed. They've admitted to it all already.
September 29, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey,hey! We are having a hypothetical discussion here, so don't go introducing facts. Hypothetically Bush, Yoo, and all of the malefactors...I mean...participants were acting only under the terrible threat of Saddam's nuclear missiles, aimed at the USA. So, hypothetically they had no choice but to force those evil terrorists to tell them where the antidote was. We are all still alive, so they had to have succeeded. Hypothetically, I mean.
September 29, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have little doubt, the next Democratic administration will find a profound discrepancy between the what documentation the previous administration retained and what was required, under the law, to be retained. That is where it will all begin.
September 30, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink