You Can't Handle The Truth
It's been fascinating to watch the little tempest in a pot over the torture memos which Obama decided to release in compliance with the court order.
There is a small group of people (including myself) who believe that torture should be prosecuted and anyone involved should be punished. There is a larger group of people (including, frequently, Obama) who just want to use torture memos as a way to settle a political score - so they only focus on those in power at the time. Then there is another group (including, frequently, Obama) that just wants to move on. Of course, we already know which group will prevail in the end.
So, to those who want the truth, I say - you can't handle the truth. You will have to choose between the truth and Obama, and you will choose Obama.
So most likely, you will make a deal with your conscience and accept his invitation to "move on". At worst, you will cheerlead selective application of the law and focus on rounding up a few scapegoats so you can have a show trial and "move on". You don't have the balls to face the truth that will damage your own party and your own president.
The entire Democratic leadership in Congress has been complicit in torture policy. They have been repeatedly briefed about it. They voted for laws that protected those who tortured. They cared more about being seen as "strong on defense". They cared more about mid-term congressional elections. They care more about power than the truth, and that's why there will be no "truth commission".
And given the partisanship of party politics in America, you will close your ranks, distract yourselves with Bachmann 2.0 and then rush headlong to leave behind exculpatory evidence in the form of grand health care reform.
Please tell me it ain't so.
I promise to keep ranting. Besides, I anticipate the big sell-out on healthcare when D's and R's hold hands and agree that servicing their lobbyists is the greater good.
But you are correct. Nothing is going to come of the torture thing. The establishment is heavily invested in protecting itself (see Wall Street bailout for reference). We even have poor David Gergen today crying about peope being mean to little Jane Harman.
April 26, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know exactly why the leftists disdain Harman so much, but at least she put a file into a folder where she opposed torture "for the record". Pelosi could have done much more than that, but she chose to lie instead.
If this country wants to restore its "values" and the rule of law, then we must be willing to bear whatever cost the investigation would bring, republicans and democrats alike.
April 26, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, your point is really even bigger than you make it because if we really got into investigating the torture thing we'd tear open the whole sordid story of Iraq and there you'd really find the Dems in big time complicity with the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
Far better for the East Coast establishment to tweak farm policy (and send farm boys off to war).
April 26, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
When roughly half the country approved, prosecution of everyone would approximate civil war. Prosecution of those that developed and justified the policy, and gave the orders, is already hard, but is not settling scores. Obama is reluctant to even embrace that goal, so he's clearly not interested in doing prosecutions for that reason. Our own reps signed off on stuff we now regret, and that they were not well briefed is not really exculpatory.
But it is explanatory that the entire government was compromised in a sense, when we ask why prosecutions are not happening yet. But that is not the same as hearing the truth. That is happening now, and you are not superior because you claim the ability to handle truths we resist. What you are arguing for is prosecution, a result of the truth, sometimes. Prosecutions can be the result of lies as well, so let's all keep pushing for more release of info. I think we can agree on that.
April 26, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I think you suggest amounts to a political calculation - prosecution of policy at the expense of prosecuting the actual ACTIONS. I don't think this is honest.
April 26, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Prosecutors always try to choose cases that are achievable. Losing can be worse than not trying, if precedents are established.
Was South Africa afraid of the truth?
April 26, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course. But also it is illegal to perform acts of torture, regardless of who gave the order.
In fact, prosecuting acts of torture is easier from the legal point of view than prosecuting policy.
And it will be very hard to prosecute lawyers, whose job was ostensibly to respond to CIA's "requests" for opinions on legality of waterboarding.
April 26, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why? Isn't subverting the law illegal?
Frankly Lalo, believe it or not, I agree with you. I'm just not as impatient. It took a few years for Nuremberg, after all.
What I want to drive home is that it will take all of us bitching and moaning to our reps and the justice department and the white house to get this to go.
You're gonna hate this, but 'Yes we can.' I have found, that when you have people on both the left and right agreeing on a core issue, you can move the mountain that is DC. It happened with FCC regulations, and it should happen now.
The worst enemies are apathy, despair, and indifference.
I am glad you care, but try not to despair. I'm sorry if I got rough. I care deeply, too.
Shout out to the pug, you made me look.
=D
April 26, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The statute clearly includes abetting torture as an equivalent offense. It's pretty difficult to avoid a direct link between the act of issuing an opinion and actions taken under the color of that opinion. The actions would never have occurred without the opinion. How is that NOT abetting?
April 26, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
After WWII, waterboarding was torture. After Gonzo, not so much. At what point can we refuse to allow a person the ignorant and stupid defense?
April 27, 2009 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly I think your analysis is spot on Lalo...
It seems the Democrats are developing a track record of being prone not do do the correct things for the wrong reasons, chief among them being for the sake of political expediency.
I have seen the Krugman attacks start once he wouldn't back off his assessment of the potential failings of the president's economic plans and I fully expect some on the left will criticize people who want torturers prosecuted when we have 'so many other pressing issues which confront us as a nation'. In addition I don't hold out much hope that our government is going to stop spying on us, especially seeing how that spying activity has picked up during the Obama administration and he supported telecom immunity, nor that the hideous Patriot Act will be discarded.
I hope I am proved wrong but with each passing day that hope fades more and more. But when it comes to choosing between 'the truth' and a political leader I always opt for the truth...even if that truth is uncomfortable.
April 26, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I must admit, the recent actions by the Obama DOJ have been the most unexpected and surprising actions since he was elected. I knew about spending, healthcare and energy and I will accept them even if I disagree.
But being spied on by my own government in the name of "national security" is so much like "1984", it's simply stunning.
When you return to the US from abroad, it's like entering prison. Finger-printing, cameras, openly hostile immigration officials.
I'm always struck by how little dignity and how much humiliation awaits those who travel to the land of the free.
April 26, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
We now live in a de facto police state Lalo. Bush urged that the measures were passed and the congress obliged in a VERY bi-partisan way. And just because the D's are in power nothing is going to change. People acting in good faith from across the the political spectrum, left and right, have to bring pressure to bear for it to be changed. But it seems long standing mistrust of each other, encouraged by our political leaders, will probably prevent people of good faith in joining together to make the changes that need to be made. There will always be 'policy' disagreements between conservatives and liberals...but I feel that there should be, and is, no disagreement on the issues of not allowing torture and not allowing our government spying on us without cause.
How did we get here? High time we insist our rights are protected first and foremost...and I was VERY critical of Bush and the Republican controlled congress for putting in place these police state policies and I will be VERY critical of Obama and a Democratically controlled congress that does nothing to fix the problems they helped make.
Good post...I hope working together we can take control of our government again. Then we can fight about what to do about health care, etc...
April 26, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it started a long time before Bush took office, but we are in a police state. Have been for decades. Between the Cold War, the Drug War and the War on Terror, politicians on both sides of the aisle have fed us a steady diet of fear. Otherwise, I totally agree.
April 26, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually a VERY good point Jason. I guess I should have said it went from the sublime, to the ridiculous, to the blatantly obvious after 2001.
So I think we are in full agreement...it has been an effort going on for a very long time.
April 26, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. All the horrors they kept stuffed in the closet or behind closed doors overseas were shoved in our faces to see if we would flinch. For eight years, most of the country didn't look away and seemed to revel in empire. I am actually hopeful that this may have been the very thing we needed to wake us up.
April 26, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like you said the horrors have been kept safely out of sight...but for far longer than the last 8 years. We have, both D's and R's, supported some of the most illiberal regimes throughout the planet. Death Squads, right wing dictatorships, military juntas were supported...all in the name of freedom, Democracy and the American Way. But the last 8 years have been different...instead of supporting regimes that did that we became a government that overtly did those things. I know there is little difference in giving support to these crimes and actually doing the same thing ourselves (which who knows, we probably were)...but we definitely crossed a line if that line existed.
April 26, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or finally became aware of what we condoned in our silence when those same tactics were brought to bear in our name. I guess we should thank Bush and Cheney for being so blatantly imperialistic or else I can't imagine what it would have taken for We The People to finally wake up.
April 26, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only war that dare not speak it's name is the War on Poverty.
April 26, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Class War has ever been a staple of American politics. By keeping the Middle Class afraid of the Poor and striving to be Rich, the true elite have deftly kept us working at cross purposes.
April 26, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rec'd. Very much in agreement on much of this, though what kind of thing do we prosecute reps and senators who voted for, or were apprised of, methods that were illegal?
April 26, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
One does have to wonder whether any 'sitting' government could/would fully investigate itself. Investigation of the torture activities conducted under the Bush administration certainly wouldn't happen if we still had a Republican controlled legislature. There will probably be collateral damage on the Democratic side of the aisle as well as on the Rs side, (as the Rs controlled the chairs of the various intelligence committees at the time of the abuses, I anticipate the fallout to be heavier on that side of the street), and I would expect there to be a commensurate amount of political ducking and weaving, (from both sides), as a result. Even given the scenario of an 'independent' investigator I would expect there to be shades of a Ken Starr type dog and pony show, (perhaps in retribution for Starr's far reaching investigation of Foster/Clinton). That isn't to say that there should be no investigation(s) of the interested parties to torture/torture memos. We do the best we can with what we have to work with. Time will tell how open and honest an investigation we'll get. My best guess is it will be some gradation of the scenario you paint.
April 26, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pass the scones, please.
"It ain't so."
There is another group of people. They don't assume torture. They call for investigations into allegations of torture, followed by reasonable prosecutions where sound prima facie cases obtain. They discourage witch hunting and eschew blinders.
Your stupid fatalism is part of the problem. Wise up.
April 26, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"reasonable prosecutions" but that's the whole point eds.
The only reasonable prosecution is one that is done to the full extent. Anything else is show trials and window-dressing.
April 26, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who, precisely is arguing that prosecutions should not be full prosecutions?
The media? I have not seen any arguments to that end here, except perhaps for Barth.
April 26, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the main point was "Your stupid fatalism is part of the problem. Wise up."
The point of "reasonable prosecutions" is to rule out "unreasonalbe" -- both witch hunts ala McCarthy and rubber stamp "not guilty" verdicts ala some military courts which have acquitted or given wrist slaps in history. You're trying to make it into something else and you're not even beginning to make a case for "complete" in a particular prosecution, much less setting standards for such prosecutions in general.
The main point was that your OP ignored the major important group in its snide attacks.
April 27, 2009 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
It all has to come out. No matter where it leads. This is not a partisan issue.
April 26, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should not be a partisan issue, but it probably doesn't all have to come out. "no matter where it leads" is anti-pragmatic, but you probably simply meant that significant bad guys should not be protected in the process.
I object to both the style and content of the blog post.
April 26, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo, I am with you on this. Obama needs to simply step out of the way and let the system work. The polls have nothing to do with anything. There was a time in my childhood that a majority would have said that blacks and whites could not marry; that we should not go to school together; that it was okay to segregate drinking fountains. The majority was wrong then, and the 48% who say it is fine and dandy to torture (as long as it works) now are wrong.
I have read what Orlando wrote on another blog, and I respect her opinion, but respectfully disagree. True, the VP got away with outing a CIA agent for his own political reasons, but he should not get away with this, and the only way we can hope to prevent future malfeasance is to punish this one.
This is fundamental to the very core of our country. If we can see a President resign in disgrace for his crimes and our country came out okay, we can also shed light on underlings of another president (and maybe the president and vp themselves) if they betrayed us. The only way to stop future criminality is to show that we have no tolerance for it.
April 26, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure how my comments keep getting taken as "they got away with it once so I'm fine with them getting away with it again." I'm not fine with them getting away with anything. My point is that in the past no one in high office has ever been held to full account.
Like Lalo said, show trials and window dressing.
In my opinion, the best way to prevent it in the future is to completely understand what happened through total transparency. Release more memos. Release all the memos and information from our history--any time we've ever been even a tiny little bit complicit in torture.
Let's all see what we're dealing with and then decide how to deal with it.
Or, there can be trials where somebody gets convicted of something. We shrug our shoulders, happy that at least somebody has to pay, and put our blinders back on. Meanwhile, we've focused time and money on a circus while Rome is still burning.
Given the choice between a circus and a firetruck, I'll take the firetruck, please.
April 26, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. I have no idea what you mean by this. In what context? If you want entertainment, the circus might deliver; if you want protection it would be the fire truck. I don't think you are talking about entertainment OR protection, so what ARE you talking about?
I thought you WERE saying that since it didn't work the first time we should give up on the justice system. This is one quote:
You said later that you were not suggesting that bygones be bygones, but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what you are saying.
April 26, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see two choices for how to deal with this. One is prosecution and the other is to make it all public. Own up to it, apologize, as one nation, to the world, and then make absolutely sure going forward that our laws are crystal clear about what torture is and where the line is drawn. I'm no lawyer, but from what I've read, prosecution is not a slam-dunk. Not to mention the fact that trials are always about a winning side and a losing side and justice is never a forgone conclusion.
So, if we take option one, there is a chance that it will all go according to plan, that the right people will be convicted. But there is also a chance that no one will be convicted. Or that some will be, but only as meat for the lions.
Meanwhile, we have gigantic domestic policy issues to solve. Maybe we can solve them at the same time that a trial is going on, maybe not. Another risk.
The firetruck was in reference to Rome burning, which was in reference to allowing the circus of an investigation and prosecution overcome the work that needs to be done to fix our policy.
April 26, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"the other is to make it all public"
- I agree with this.
April 27, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo, I too think your analysis is pretty spot on. Time will tell.
In a show of bi-partisionship I also want to give another shout out to our crazy right winger Leo Emmanuel locard's post NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. I think it important that it is clear that torture investigations are not a right or left issue, but a right or wrong issue.
(I am on a mission to try and get a conservative's post to top the TPM rec list, gotta be a first time for everything).
April 26, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
nevermind looks like the 24 hour shot clock ran out. close, made it to 3rd. damn.
April 26, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, number three just means next time a conservative writes a good blog, they'll be room for improvement.
=D
Nice effort, thanks.
April 26, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
How often is that going to happen? I mean the idea is fun and all but I gotta agree with the message first. Thats going to be a real rarity. Particularly a post from someone as far right as Leo.
Nope, should have seized the mission earlier and spammed every comment section fast and furiously (kinda like eds when he decides to blitz a thread by responding to every single comment).
Oh well it was fun :)
April 26, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope Leo appreciated it.
You're a good egg, Saladin
April 26, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone just has to acknowledge that excellent bit of word play, Bwak. To think that I used to believe chickens weren't clever.
April 27, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, to those who want the truth, I say - you can't handle the truth. You will have to choose between the truth and Obama, and you will choose Obama.
I disagree with this central point of your essay. Although you make many valid -- if fairly obvious -- points, most of your respondents put the lie to your attempted insult.
The criminals are the conservative politicians who have held the White House non-stop since 1981, not the sensible "lefties." Those of us who are now well to the left of the country as a whole would have been comfortable in the Republican party of thirty-five or forty years ago.
April 26, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you actually missed my point. Which was that whenever there is a choice to make - power or truth, inevitably power is chosen.
April 26, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think this situation can necessarily be defined by the rule you propose. Or more accurately, I don't think you account for the fact that at times the truth can be utilized as an instrument to achieve power.
You make a huge assumption regarding the level of disclosure provided to congress. If Pelosi is genuine in her push-back against the Cheney/Goss assertions, it might end up being a better political move to initiate an investigation now since it has been alleged she was involved from the get-go. She was pretty defiant in the press conference and even opened up questions. Goss may have made a misstep by putting the issue of early committee briefings on the table. Pelosi couldn't have gotten away with doing that by herself. Now she can call to declassify if she wants - and blame it on Goss.
I think Cheney has a weak hand: Bush left him hanging. If democratic leadership can hang it all on his crew and cut them loose with blame - they are going to jump on it.
We'll see what happens, but there isn't enough information available for your prediction to be anything but wildly speculative at this point. As a dedicated cynic, it won't surprise me if it turns out like you predict ... but there are too many competing interests for it to be as cut and dried as you are presenting.
April 26, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please. Pelosi said they told her had clearance for these interrogation techiques but not that they would use them.
Really?? How does that make any sense? Why would they tell her that and not what's next? And why wouldn't she ask? Given that kind of disclosure and the law ANY sane person would ask. What is she, 5 years old?
I love Bill Clinton despite all republican smear campaigns but this defense is really like the "definition of is".
April 27, 2009 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you're right. I did miss your point, but I think you made it better in this one paragraph than in your essay.
Just watch who you call "you," OK?
April 27, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the incoming president's to do list:
1. The Economy
2. Get hell out of Iraq
3. The Economy
4. Mop up after the last administration in Afghanistan.
5. The Economy
6. Choose a cabinet
7. The Economy
8. Release Memos from the last administration
9. The Economy
10. Convince some Americans--some in Congress that he is American
11. Visit foreign countries
12. Speak with foreign leaders about the economy.
13. Pass a spending budget
14. The Economy
15. Cut most Americans taxes
And he had to do this all in his first 150 days; he actually had to start on the economy before he was sworn into office. It took a few years for the extra-legal policy of torture to be formulated and it will take at least this year to iron out the details.
Haste makes for poor jurisprudence.
April 26, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It took a few years for the extra-legal policy of torture to be formulated and it will take at least this year to iron out the details. "
Sorry, this is not true. Torture was approved as policy in the span of 2001-2003. In 2004, the fact of torture was already made public. There was no outrage. Democrats had mid-term elections coming up, so they looked the other way.
It's only now, after the change of administration, that shit is finally coming up. But the sad truth is that it will be hushed up and brushed under the carpet.
Because going after the truth will hurt too many people currently in power.
April 27, 2009 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you, Lalo. Not much I can add other than: Rec!
April 27, 2009 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
This all rings true, but I have time and again been surprised by the system. I can cite all the Republican congressmen who went down for much lesser crimes, powerful politicians such as Duke Cunninghanm and even Tom (I am the government) Delay, investigated by the Bush Justice Department and by their tiny state governments. These corruption convictions played as much of a role as did the issues themselves in bringing about a Democratic majority, and all this happened to the Republican party under a compromised Republican Justice Department.
The truth is once someone such as Patrick Fitzgerald and others latch onto an investigation like a pitbull, quite often partisanship does not matter and at least some justice does get served. There are certain thresholds against which even the most powerful cannot push back. Insistent groups sue, information gets leaked to tireless journalists or released due to a court order, Glenzilla blogs, Keith blows a gasket, the gaggle buzzes, and when the momentum is there, an investigation is opened and it's Fitzmas. As any TPMer must know, it has happened enough times in the past recent years that the idea should not be dismissed.
After all, although Col. Jessep is right about our inability to handle the truth, he does pay in the end. Only time will tell.
April 27, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Its disingenuous to read the contradictions you portray as evidence. Your suspensions are not adequately portrayed in your ironic perceptions.
July 15, 2009 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink