Mr. President, War Crimes Must Be Investigated
The memos about torture released by the Obama administration are horrifying to read. Nothing new, here, but they are like a punch in the stomach all over again. This is my country? This is the nation that stands for freedom and decency?
I understand why President Obama doesn't want to prosecute those who believed they were acting under laws written by the Office of Legal Counsel. But that is not the only policy he and other Democrats can pursue.
First, the men who wrote those memos should be investigated for disbarment. They acted in ways that are unconscionable and unprofessional, to put it mildly.
Second, neither the President nor Congress should investigate these crimes. They must be pursued by a special independent investigator who has no political ax to grind. Now you may well ask, who approves of torture? Well, hardly anyone, except those in the Bush administration who justified or directed these war crimes.
Third, how can we allow a sitting federal judge to remain on the bench--for life-- when he provided legal justification for torture? I speak here, of course, of Jay.Bybee, who should resign or be impeached.
Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because the country I care so much about has breached some of the most important international conventions in modern history and yet no major leaders have been held accountable. If the investigation goes straight to Vice-President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush, then so be it.
Remember the date over whether President Ford should have pardoned President Nixon for his violations of the constitution? The best argument for that pardon was that Nixon HAD been held accountable and had to resign his office. He had, in short, received a serious punishment.
President Obama's instincts are right to avoid a drawn-out partisan conflict over the past. But if we are truly a nation of laws, committed to the decency and morality we embrace, we cannot let people who justify or commit torture and other war crimes to escape prosecution. Those who agree should make their voices loud, joining Amnesty International, the ACLU and many thousands of other Americans who will not allow war crimes to be committed in their name.
Ruth, you're right but the problem is the worry about having a "partisan" battle about the past (a past so recent that it encompasses current events).
There is no reliably non-partisan adjudicator that we can appeal to.
We do have this -- the 2006 and 2008 elections where the American public handed executive and legislative power to the Democrats. Now it's time for the Democrats to do their jobs without regard to charges of "partisanship."
If we're going to have parties, let's have it out and be honest about it. Their party breaks thumbs, strips people, beats them, puts them on leashes, humiliates them and executes them when they don't comply.
If our party would like to say "that's a crime" then I'm all for "partisanship."
Now I'll stop with the scare quotes because here's the truth: partisanship, for lack of a better word... is good.
Why are we apologizing for being on the right side of history?
April 17, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's your view, and I can see the logic of it. But that's just not what won the election, it's not Obama's style.
Also, even if you are really being partisan, the best way to do it is under the cloak of non-partisanship, So either way, loudly trumpeting your intentions is unwise. Let the GOP come off as crass and petty.
Third, Obama won't rebuff the Congress if they want to pursue things. What's preventing a Truth and Reconciliation committee in Congress???
I also want to avoid punishing the small fish who were following orders, instead of the big fish, who are the most culpable. That would be unjust as well -- like street dealers serving long sentences while the kingpins go free. It's easy to go after the small guys -- in fact, they are offered up as sacrafice. No, the people who created the policies need to be investigated and prosecuted, as well as anyone who went beyond the written policy.
April 17, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
My froggy friend, the problem is that we have to cloak anything under the banner of "non-partisan."
A party is an assembly of the like-minded, nothing more. That the concept of partisanship is now perceived as some sort of sin is a failure of our own rhetoric.
If you're against domestic wiretapping withouth warrants or the torture of dissidents from the US and abroad... good news! You're likely a Democrat.
No need to fear the party.
April 17, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"President Obama's instincts are right to avoid a drawn-out partisan conflict over the past."
The only way this could become a "partisan" conflict is if the Republicans endorsed torture as an international political tool even more than they already have endorsed it.
That would be a lose, lose, lose situation for the Republicans.
.
April 20, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not Obama's style? Who cares about that? We aren't talking about a question of style or taste or personal preference here. We are talking about enforcing the laws of the land. It is Obama's job to enforce the law regardless of what his style might be.
April 18, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, Destor.
April 17, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
But you do, Bwak! We're trained apologists. It'd be an insult to chickens to call us chickens. BWAK!
April 17, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ack!
(unsure if she should fluff up, or not)
April 17, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
No fluffing, I'd never insult you personally!
But... in this case all half measures and compromises do seem like cowardly capitulations.
April 17, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to agree. This is America. It's about time we starting acting like it.
=(
April 17, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We the people...
April 18, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
To quote General MacArthur...
April 17, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo Destor!
April 18, 2009 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could it be that releasing the memos is intended to provoke, by force of bare fact? Destor may be right that there is no independent actor, but there is a version of it, people writing their representatives and senators. John Conyers said as much in the Bush years, regarding impeachment.
April 17, 2009 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
... and then as soon as he got the power to do something about impeachment Conyers caved. Go figure.
April 18, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
He had power to start something, but not the political cover that lots of mail would give.
April 18, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prosecution of underlings is debatable, but should not be amongst principals of any illegal policy. If we do not follow out the legal remedies for misconduct such as the torture policy and illegal wiretaps of the Bush admin, we are asking for repeats in the future --- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
April 17, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bottom line is it is time for our government to come out of the shadows in terms of the way it operates and hold people accountable for any or all crimes committed. We are not at war (I defy anyone to name a country we are currently at war with), even though from WWII up to the present the government has claimed we have been in a state of perpetual war (WWII, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the GWOT, Afghanistan, Iraq) and the government conducts it business in secret with limited accountability based on the fact they claim we are war and they are entitled to 'War Powers'.
There are no valid reasons why the American government should be allowed to spy on its own people in peace time and no justification for ever torturing anyone when we are at peace or even when we are at war. If people are not held responsible America, the country that is supposedly the beacon of freedom and justice in the world, ceases to exist.
April 17, 2009 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, there is good news if these senior officials and Finegold know whereof they speak. From what is floating around on the web, it is not clear that Obama gave blanket immunity to the CIA.
Here is what Obama said in part, with my emphasis:
Marc Armbinder has been following this and has heard from two senior administrators:
He also notes Russ Feingold's statement:
Apparently the International Red Cross report that was recently released is seen as evidence of "enhanced interrogations" that went beyond the atrocities that were approved in the OLC memos.
April 17, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
International Red Cross report
I think you are on the right track--Prez is orchestrating the emergence of conditions under which he will be forced to move forward on all sorts of criminal prosecutions; remember his multiple disavowals during the September Market Meltdown of any felt need to get credit for the successful outcome.
That is not mere posturing, it is the sign of someone makng meta analysis of the situation and the players, and applying the results to the formulation of a winning strategy.
Thank you, Jesus, for a team captain with instincts for the jugular, a secure sense of himself, and a disarming smile and a working brain.
All that is needed is a suitable "cover" for the release of the ICRC stuff (which is supposed to be mind boggling in its reach).
Remember, it was embargoed before because of the confidentiality shibboleth professed by the Red Cross--that doesn't prevent our current government from releasing it, as the confidentiality obligation runs only to the government.
So I will say to Ruth, with no sense of irony (but some satisfaction in the use of the phrase):
"Let not your heart be troubled..."
April 18, 2009 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Prez is orchestrating
serendipitously, I just stumbled on Glenn G. who says the same thing:
" What Obama did yesterday -- whether by design or not -- provided the most potent tools yet to create the political pressure for prosecutions."
April 18, 2009 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you're right about this, but there's no real reason to believe this is the case. Obama is not the crafty genius bobbing this way only to be able to weave in the other direction. He has made a calculated political decision for his own purposes that have nothing to do with what is right or wrong for the country. His decision was based on what is best for him politically and in the short term which is, of course, the worst possible basis upon which to make this decision. Justice demands a very different result, but that is not at all what Obama hopes for.
April 18, 2009 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
what Obama hopes for
I am less sure that I can discern his hopes than you, perhaps.
I think he hopes to see war crimes punished, and the criminals incarcerated--the higher level better than the lower.
I also think that he believes (probably correctly) that a direct run at them will enable to smokescreen to fill in.
Consider that by establishing what purports to be an amnesty but is in reality a factual screen "who in good faith", etc. means that once credibly accused, the perp must discribe his behavior and make a convincing offer of proof as to his state of mind.
Thus, the facts of the behavior become public and unrebutted, and the argument is over the inside of the guy's head.
This process can only result in ever expanding and higher rising liability, as the underling is obliged to divulge the entirety of his mandate as he understood it.
I'm feelin' better about this just writing the above...
April 18, 2009 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, I hope you're right but there's no reason to believe it is so. Obama's own public statements (on repeated occasions) make clear he has no interest at all in seeing anyone prosecuted. The scenario you describe is too complicated and very unlawyerly in approach. I cannot imagine him not taking a very solid legal approach on all such questions if he chose to act.
April 18, 2009 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
very unlawyerly
On the contrary--the greatest problem faced by plaintiff's counsel is surviving a motion for summary judgment. That motion turns on whether a triable issue of fact has been raised by the complaint/charging document.
Taking Prez's public statement (without prejudice to my argument that his public position is not to be construed as his private wish) at face value, it leaves open the issue of "good faith" as an affirmative defense; as an affirmative defense it places the burden of proof on the defendant who asserts it--thus not a grant of unqualified immunity.
As soon as immunity is "qualified" the fact finding process is off and running.
April 18, 2009 3:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
The only problem with that is that accoridng to international law, treaties to which we are a signatory, and our own law good faith is not a defense for committing a war crime and that is absolutely clear.
April 18, 2009 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oleeb, I agree, and furthermore, as I understand it, the Geneva Conventions, which are now part of our law, require the government to prosecute anyone they know of who violates those conventions. I am having a hard time understanding why the Obama administration hasn't begun doing so, given that our new AG has stated more than once that waterboarding is torture, thus prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
I am looking forward to seeing Yee and Bybee in the defendants chair. At least until they blow the whistle on Cheney and Bush.
April 19, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you are right, jolly. Finegold's involvement is heartening.
April 18, 2009 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
heartening
Indeed.
And, as a thought experiment (esp. considering the deleted tapes, which a jury would be instructed to consider grounds for an inference of guilty conscience...) let's apply Prez's statement to the 100 or so cases of death under interrogation.
Well, the first problem for the perp (who, nb. will now be outed...)is to explain how he killed someone using only the listed techniques...perhaps you can produce lethal blunt force trauma while slapping a person in the abdomen or bouncing them off one of those special walls.
If that is going to be their defense, then bring it on motherfuckers
April 18, 2009 4:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I too am still giving the process and Pres. Obama the benefit of the doubt, although I find patience to be wearing thin. I have been thinking for a while that the Administration's actions are consistent with a plan of laying this at the feet of Congress to ramp up the investigative process. Congress after all, including many of the Democrats running it now, bears a not small protion of the blame for our present fixes.
I have great concerns with the apparent coziness of the Treasury and Fed leaders with Wall St. and off Wall St investment banking community. I happen to think that there was significant fraud at the top levels of the our government sanctioned Ponzi type pyramids. There are few signs that there will be any criminal and many signs that the perpertrators' bank accounts will grow.
The Administration's public response to the warrantless wiretapping issues is likewise uncomfortable, but maybe Pres. Obama is laying this one at the feet of the Congress, too. I truly hope so.
What I find disturbing is if you are wrong, JollyRoger, on the torture issue, Pres. Obama will have succumbed to the tired old meme of fear. The same fear that Repubs/Neocons stoked up the last eight years and the same fear that Pres. Obama so brilliantly defeated in order to get elected.
Pres. Obama, this is no time for peeing our pants.
April 18, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
With all genuine respect you are grasping at straws here. Leon Pannetta, at his confirmation hearings, stated flatly that no one, I repeat no one, at the CIA would be prosecuted for torture. He has subsequently repeated the statement at least once publicly. Not one soul in the administration has disputed this or even implied anyone would dispute Pannetta's clear, unambiguous statement. Had there been any confusion or conflict about that statement, something would have been said long ago. I think you can pretty well take Obama and Pannetta at their clear words: they are not going to prosecute anyone for torture.
The only scenario under which investigations, let alone prosecutions, may take place is if the citizenry forces the cowardly DC Democrats to do their jobs, uphold the law and pursue every single one of the criminals who broke the laws and treaty obligations of this land from top to bottom and especially at the top.
April 18, 2009 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
if the citizenry forces
That is correct; that is our job.
We do have a job here, but the *tools are at hand.
*provided by Prez himself--think Hari Seldon
April 18, 2009 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, but not intentionally. I'll take it either way though.
April 18, 2009 3:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just a messenger (albeit a hopeful one) here, oleeb. You may well be right in your assessments of Obama and Panetta.
In wandering around the ACLU website earlier, I learned that 92 CIA tapes have been destroyed and that 12 of those were torture tapes. The CIA does have a list of roughly 3,000 summaries, transcripts, reconstructions and memoranda relating to 92 interrogation videotapes that were destroyed by the agency. The CIA is fighting their release in court.
April 18, 2009 3:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hope is okay, but you also have to believe your own eyes and ears at some point and realize the hope is never going to be fulfilled. At least it won't be fulfilled simply by hoping.
Remember, though he has marketed himself as something different, Obama is not, in reality, any different than any other typical politician in any substantive sense of that word. He himself, a an individual, is certainly a change, but his methods, philosophy and his approach are not different at all from the typical centrist/corporate/DLC mush that's been coming out of Democrats for the past twenty years.
This is not a criminal problem to him nor is it a moral problem. To him and to those who advise him, this is first and foremost and always will be a political problem. If you approach a subject like this from that perspective you are bound to come to the wrong conclusions and make the wrong decisions as Obama clearly has done.
The hope that he has some hidden intention to do the right thing is really, and I mean this very respectfully, little more than a form of denial. John Turley said last week, and I believe we should heed him, that the President's supporters have to come to grips with the fact that this President has no intention at all of investigating, prosecuting or even eliminating the rotten policies of the Bush years on subjects like torture, domestic spying and the many other crimes of the Bush regime.
April 18, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Leon Panetta doesn't get to decide who gets prosecuted. That's up to the AG or any special counsel who gets appointed. Not saying the odds aren't long anyway, but it's not Panetta's call.
April 20, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Tom Wright wrote;
Could it be that releasing the memos is intended to provoke, by force of bare fact?**
aka, plausible denyability - good thinking Holmes...
Obama gets to CLAIM a middle-ground so he can still get a couple R votes where he needs them on the Hill, while in reality the release of what nearly all of us Progressives felt in our bones thru the awful years of the Bush Regime - chapter and verse on their evils - sets a fission reaction in motion that results in a special prosecutor.
I mean, we know they canceled the 4th Amendment also. Feingold was the largest voice on the Hill when it was revealed, after Bush lied during '04 campaign stops - categorically stating that any surveillance was within the Constitution only.
He & Cheney both deserved impeachment on that alone. Yet Feingold, couldn't even get a censure resolution out of a rubberstamping, Neo-Con Senate.
Whom also happens to now be totally disproven, on their simpleton "Trickle-Down" economic ideology.
It's amazing who is still getting duped by these charlatans. I think they were all out there on 4/15, leaping around about tax & spend government... ;^)
April 18, 2009 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not deniability (he's not lying, after all) but sound politics, and it insulates him somewhat from those who would feel aggrieved enough to come gunning.
April 18, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tax and spend? Bush started the latest round and then left a mess of Obama to clean. He fell down on the latest statements about not prosecuting the torturers, but I still don't envy him his huge task. He may very well be creating the inevitable, but I would like to see him move unequivocally and not mince words.
April 18, 2009 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
to see him move unequivocally
Even if the cost of providing us with that edifiying spectacle is to raise the hazard that the scumbags will escape because they are again able to befuddle the people?
I'll be satisfied if Yoo gets it in the back and Prez is all the way across the yard when it happens.
April 18, 2009 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
An example of Bybee's incompetence with his 'legal opinion' is shown in this comment, and a blatant disregard for the intent of the law is found in the last quote on this comment.
Sorry for the self-linking, but it's easier to explain.
I think Obama needs to stay disconnected from this in order to plow forward with the rest of his agenda, and I don't fault him for it. However, Congress MUST establish an independent committee to investigate the implications of these memos, and yes, impeach Bybee.
April 18, 2009 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I think Obama needs to stay disconnected from this in order to plow forward with the rest of his agenda,"
The Quagmire of Tradeoffs when you are a president looking to do his or her actual job (as opposed to one bent on implementing extremism...).
Obama turned to the Progressive blogosphere to get him elected, so he has some faith in it's capacities - even if newly discovered. BevD, I actually share your skepticism and yet, we can all press this matter if we choose to;
http://www.emailcongress.net
-
April 18, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just did mine! :^)
April 18, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The CIA has engaged in extraordinary methods of extraction of information for decades, this is nothing new. What is new, however, is that the former administration avidly and openly made the U.S. Army complicit in this policy.
What will happen, is that there will be a lot of posturing, pius envocations of patriotism, a few hearings and then - nothing. Nothing will be done.
April 18, 2009 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
To me this isn't about war crimes or any specific crime. It's not about partisanship. It's not about whether Obama's agenda succeeds. It's not about whether the Democratic Party suceeds.
It's about whether Americans will be ruled by law or by thugs.
Seems to me we have a government of thugs and cowards.
CIA was only obeying the law? HA! They knew better. The American people may be a gang of sheep just like the Germans before them, but there is no excuse for high officials.
April 18, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It's about whether Americans will be ruled by law or by thugs.
Seems to me we have a government of thugs and cowards."
Very true and well put!
April 18, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...Stephen L. Bybee, who should resign or be impeached."
Hear! Hear!
April 18, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
resign or be impeached
While I yield to no one in my enthusiasm to see Bybee return to private life, I wonder if you can impeach a judicial officer for a non-judicial act that preceeded his appointment.
(Not that I would quibble if they impeached for failure to wipe his ass the requisite three times if that would get him out of office...)
April 18, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand why President Obama doesn't want to prosecute those who believed they were acting under laws written by the Office of Legal Counsel. Ruth Rosen
F'sure.
How's he gonna get his private army to act illegally when he wants it to if its centurions are worried some later Caesar might hold them accountable under law.
April 18, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The CIA is very accomplished in assassination.
Does ANYONE know what the reach and the scoop or who even is a part of the CIA??
Maybe Obama understands all that.
Maybe he went as far as he could.
See the point?
Abraham, martin and john.
April 19, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
In that case we're doomed to a corrupted government that can NOT be run by it's people. (not that I buy the "change Washington" aspects of the Obama ascent. I support him as a plan B in lieu of Hillary, for whatever progress we can get this time)
But if Obama's policy is to shield the order-followers, and then get in the back (or front) row for investigations/prosecutions of principals, I don't know what vested interest is in play for said CIA'ers. Why do they care about persons whom are no longer their boss?
(heck, let's tally for anyone who cares... ;^)
April 19, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
This puzzle piece would appear to fit the schematic;
--
Obama Open to Probe of Interrogations
By JENNIFER LOVEN
AP
posted: ONE MINUTE AGO
WASHINGTON (April 21) -- President Barack Obama said Tuesday the United States lost "our moral bearings" with gruesome terror-suspect interrogations and he left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who vouched for their legality.
At the same time, Obama said the question of whether to bring charges "is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that." The president discussed the continuing issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah of Jordan.
--
Preset from the Obama circle? Or, new remarks emanating from new pressure - from the Progressive Internet.
Either way, the effect is another step towards what needs to take place if we are a nation of laws.
April 21, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink