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The Torture Commission
THE TORTURE COMMISSION....Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports on the likely direction the Obama administration will take regarding state-sanctioned torture and detention of terrorist suspects:
Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible.
...."If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you'd instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship," said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration. A new commission, on the other hand, could emulate the bipartisan tone set by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton in investigating the 9/11 attacks.
I find myself surprisingly torn by all this. My instinctive reaction is to turn over every last shred of paper in open court and mercilessly toss into jail anyone associated in any way with this stuff. But I suspect Obama is reacting more wisely than me in this matter. Not only would trials and jail sentences set off a firestorm of protest, but in the end they might not accomplish much either. That's discouraging as hell to write, but at bottom we still have a public opinion problem here: like it or not, half the country still seems to think that torturing al-Qaeda suspects was perfectly acceptable.
So in the end, perhaps we'll get half of a Truth and Reconciliation commission: we'll get the truth, but not the reconciliation, since I doubt that any of the perpetrators of this stuff are inclined to show the slightest remorse for what they did. I suppose that here in the real world this might be the most we can expect, but I don't have to like it. And I don't.
It's important to remember what is the traditional function of a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It's to get people to testify to the truth in exchange for immunity, so that you have evidence of the crimes ordered by the authority at the top of the hierarchy.
If it does its job properly, you won't be seeing Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and RIce taking any immunity deals. Instead, it will be the their underlings and minions.
First things first. We do the T&R commission. Then we have the war crimes trial, assuming we find sufficient evidence to warrant one.
And if this provides the fact base for Spanish or British judges to prosecute - or hte International Criminal Court - so much the better
Something tells me we're not going to get the truth out of the deal.
The Right has let it be known that they will use the torture issue to motivate their partisans to be more hostile to the Obama agenda. Pluse, Obama has advisers who are GOP defectors who will want to protect their buddies, e.g. Powell and Scowcroft.
So the Obama administration will not prosecute and avoid exposing the truth.
And the Senate Republicans will be less than 100% partisan as they could be.
If it's just a bipartisan ass-covering session I say we just spend the time and money on something else. It's good for the Obama administration to openly sit down, work out, and define their future policy . . . but I don't think it's very useful to give bush republicans a seat at the table for the production of a consensus history.
Also, you must take into consideration Presidential pardons. My guess is that Bush's January 19 list of pardons will resemble the Manhattan phonebook.
Until we know who is and is not pardoned, it's hard to make firm plans. Those pardoned will have no incentive to cooperate with anyone.
And if this provides the fact base for Spanish or British judges to prosecute - or hte International Criminal Court - so much the better
This would, perhaps, be one of the more interesting effects of any such commission -- as is the case with Kissinger for his roles in operation Condor & the bombings of Cambodia & Laos, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. would have to think long & hard about the when's & where's of any post-commission international travel, in light of whatever facts would be revealed by such a commission. It's hardly justice, but the best we can probably hope for is making their unofficial status as international pariahs official.
I'm a Truth and Reconciliation guy but if we are going to try people for what has happened here, could we at least this time indict the decision makers? This business of always beating the crap out of the privates has a counterproductive level of hypocrisy that should be beneath us.
What about the firestorm that will result if no torturers are prosecuted?
The rest of the world is outraged and apparently the asshole Americans who condone torture have not yet learned their lesson. So be it.
If Obama should fail to prosecute, then he would simply make himself an accomplice after the fact. Same for those who go along with him, Kevin.
It's the law, dammit. And not just any law, but a set of laws hugely important to human rights and dignity. You can't just say, well, thems the laws, but pragmatism suggest we'd do better to ignore them this time. Or maybe you can when spotting someone go through a stop sign -- but not for torture. If it tears our country apart -- unlikely -- then that's what we deserve. See Glenn Greenwald for a further articulation of this.
Incidentally, this is why I say Kevin Drum isn't a liberal. No liberal ought to say, well, 1/2 the country is against prosecuting this egregious violation of our laws and morals, so the prudent thing to do is not prosecute.
Timing and current events are (at least in the short to mid term) on the side of the torturers. There is a lot going on that most American's care about more than this.
Don't thing much will get done, near tearm.
Unlike so many posters here, I don't believe my contributions mean that the President-elect is morally obligated to listen to me. And pretty much throughout the election, he ignored the netroots.
However, I'll note that his (and his appointees) positions on warrantless wiretapping and gitmo are plenty ugly enough to make me wonder why you guys think he'd be interested in a T&R in the first place, much less deciding not to do it for political reasons.
Hey Kevin,
Offtopic: Is our children learning?
Epic Fail: Civic Literacy Report - College Students, Public, and Elected Officials (via FARK)
I've never heard of the group that created this study and report. They claim to be non-partisan of course, but who knows.
However, they really put out a fun and scary report -- so they have some mad skillz going for them.
This is why everyone hate Democrats. Republicans can use the whole Constitutional power they are give to set a trap to impeach a president for being cagy about a BJ but Democrats can't be bothered to actually pursue actual crimes.
Hmm, that "non-partisan" group seems to publish Rick Santorum and a lot of other nonsensical conservative crap.
Still, as I said, their fun/scary PR skills are mad.
Why won't they punish criminals?
The next thing you know, Repubs will attack the Dems for being soft on crime because they let the torturers and violaters of human rights get away. And true to form Dems will try to explain with very little effect.
I too am torn and unsure what should be done. I want, however, to echo and endorse a thought that I've seen expressed by others when issues like this have come up in the last few years.
The last thirty-plus years have witnessed several moments when, in the wake of especially heinous abuses of power, we were urged to let bygones be bygones--after Watergate, after Iran-Contra. The reasons are plausible enough: healing, the need to unite the country and move forward. As a result, often enough the bygones who were let be continued to occupy places of power and influence, or hoped, with every expectation of success, to return to them. Most of them have been utterly unrepentant. Instead they worked relentlessly to push their extremist agenda in foreign policy, to advance the narrow interests of the bloated plutocracy whose creature they are, but above all to return to and achieve a tighter grip on power. Their means include obstructionism in the legislature, constant and highly effective efforts to distract attention from real issues and an endless, unceasing flow of lies and slanders directed against their opponents. Their crimes once back in power could, and should, fill many volumes. All the while they have mouthed pieties about bi-partisanship. It's in good part because we let bygones be bygones in the interests of healing the wounds, moving forward and all that that we are in the mess we're in now.
I'm not at all sure what to do, but we will live to regret it if there is to be no accountability.
Well, I got all but one right on the Epic Fail (and some of those questions have a distictive lean to them). Does that mean I don't have to listen to whining right wingers for awhile?
I think that a calmer approach-- which I am beginning to think of as the paradigmatic Obama approach-- is the wiser one here. The key point Mr. Drum made is that about half the country either refuses to admit that torture occurred or continues to view it as acceptable "given the circumstances." The most important task is to change that opinion, not punish some individuals who will then become martyrs to the Palinites. Exposure, if taken seriously, and relentlessly, will change some of those seemingly closed minds.
It was the Watergate hearings relentlessly exposing the facts, that mattered most, not anything done in any court of law, remember.
OK, so when is it that "justice is not necessary"?
While we're at it, let's just leave GITMO open, pardon the soldiers who are imprisoned for Abu Gharib (actually, it should be Rummy there, not them!), and we will get CHANGE! Without justice..
Actually, we will all pay. We already have. The one bright spot in this election, for me (I had really hoped for a true liberal after 8 yrs of Dubya) was everyone saying that PE Obama would "fix" "this" (FISA, Patriot Act, Justice Dept.) when he gets in office".If Cheney et al , get away with this, I , for one (of many I suspect) will NOT forget! And we should NOT! Shame on you, for thinking so!
What crap...it is all rationalizing. The rest of the world will not foregt it. And the new Dem voters wil not.
One reason for the Dems "upcoming decision" on this, , that seems to be neglected here, is that many, like Harman, Pelosi, et al, knew full well what was going on. The Dems (and most here) would rather remain in denial than to expose their own. You can settle--but we all have to live with it.
It is not right, and, you know it.
If you agree with this decision, you help promote injustice. That makes you accessories, folks...
Those pardoned will have no incentive to cooperate with anyone.
Once pardoned for a crime, the person cannot be charged with that crime.
That means they have no ability to invoke the 5th Amendment, and if they choose not to testify they can be held in contempt of court and jailed until they do testify.
If these crimes are not prosecuted then the law is a mockery & no better than the fiat of dictators - trotted out to oppress the weak & changed or ignored to benefit the powerful.
Pragmatists would do well to remember that it does no good to put fresh paint on rotten wood.
Kevin,
I find myself surprisingly torn by all this. My instinctive reaction is to turn over every last shred of paper in open court and mercilessly toss into jail anyone associated in any way with this stuff. But I suspect Obama is reacting more wisely than me in this matter. Not only would trials and jail sentences set off a firestorm of protest, but in the end they might not accomplish much either.
I think I agree with you, both regarding my disappointment that what I consider justice for really severe crimes is not going to be done, and in suspecting that this may be the better way of going forward.
It seems somewhat analogous to the theory that the King's justice is better substituted for revenge attacks between independent families. That's the essential basis for the entire system of government laws, and it provides social stability rather than a feeling by the aggrieved that they got full justice for the crimes committed against them.
Don,
I think someone who has a Pardon can be called before a legal body and required to testify under penalty of contempt if they either do not testify or if they lie. It's the same as if they received immunity for their testimony.
While it doesn't provide legal justice to the criminal, the truth is exposed and can be used against others.
Col. Oliver North will never be legally punished for his crimes, but he also will never again be put into a position of power or influence. He lives in a status of public dishonor as far as most Americans are concerned.
The same could be said of Admiral Poindexter. When the Bush administration brought him back to the Pentagon, they clearly exposed the dishonorable nature of the Bush administration. Again, no legal justice, but certainly an indication of the moral level of the Bush administration and of conservatives in general. And highly unsatisfying, of course.
UN and internationally recognised war crimes, folks...is this how far you will go?
What is it about "war crimes" that puzzles you so?
Do you remember how you felt when you saw the Abu Gharib photos--feel it again...you can be certain the prisoners havent forgotten it..
Lets salvage our country's reputation , as well as out soldiers', by enacting justice. Unless youd rather save the duopoly.
No excuses on this one. Nada. Zip.
C'mon. Alot of the world has given up on all the other "promises"---there is nothing else to say. You know what is right..
"WHY do 'they' HATE us so much!!"
Must be our freedom---that is who you are siding with...
Oh, please. They're not going to do anything like a T&R commission because without actual prosecutions, it will just look like a lot of finger-pointing, and that's the very last thing O and the congressional Dem. leadership want to do.
They won't do a thing about it. They'll just say, "Oh, well, that's in the past. Let's just move on." And the entire Village will give the a standing ovation.
The one down side to having Henry Waxman get control of energy and environment is that he's the one rogue in Congress who might actually have gone ahead and done some real digging and exposure anyway.
The Obama administration won't initiate a commission, of course, just as the Bush administration refused to initiate a 9/11 commission. But there was a 9/11 commission forced on the Bush administration anyway.
Just saying - it's happened before.
I wouldn't count on it before universal health care was completed, though. The Democrats do NOT have enough political capital to undertake both at the same time, and health care is priority.
I was hoping to see Cheney in the dock at the Hague, where he could implicate Bush and who knows else.
Like Kevin, I understand the need for avoiding further animosity, but the people who were tortured couldn't avoid it. I hate this.
JD, I'd sacrifice prosecutions of the Bush administration torturers if it allowed us to get universal health insurance NOW!
If that makes me "not a liberal" then face it - I consider Nadar both a liberal and a fool who has really stupid priorities.
I'm not speaking for Kevin, of course.
Jibril,
I think you make a lot of sense. And I'd add that I'm half-way through "Angler" and Gellman lays out a good case that Cheney was the initiator of the whole torture and Gitmo process, while Bush was kept in the loop all the way but remained his usual passive incompetent demeanor, permitting Cheney to do whatever he wanted.
I don't think the torture issue is going to die away. But it's not going to get top priority any time soon, either.
If these crimes are not prosecuted then the law is a mockery & no better than the fiat of dictators
Gee, Sidewinder, are you just now becoming aware that "the law" is a highly imperfect and very limited tool either as a way of providing justice or of maintaining a stable society? Because that's very true.
"The law" is also a lot better than anything else that is available. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A lot depends on what you are trying to get done socially. Social stability is ALWAYS the first priority, and rarely ever a given.
I have to agree with Joe Galloway, who says that Rumsfeld and Cheney and their buddies better get used to life in the US of A because they can't leave the country --- they're wanted for war crimes outside the country.
."If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you'd instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship," said Robert Litt...
face it, you have no hope of that anyway. remember the mantra when the gop were hounding clinton for lying about a blowjob? "no man is above the law". I guess they meant "no democrat is above the law", but still that's a nice sounding mantra, let's try it.
There's a simple solution to all of this. Publish complete transcripts with photographs and videos of everything a commission can get its hands on.
And name names.
The public revulsion that America had anything to do with this will end up with the shunning/humiliation/public rejection/political death of everyone involved.
The people involved with spend the rest of their lives in the public equivalent of
solitary confinement.
They will be non-persons.
Kevin,
You completely miss the fact that the future is not coextensive with the Obama administration, nor with the current financial crisis and assorted other important stuff-to-do. This is a matter of general deterrence that cuts to the core of your own relationship to government. If no one is punished for what has been a massive, unlawful power grab, next time around it will be worse.
This is not a hazy projection, it is true to a certainty. You have in effect written that the passing of constitutional government leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but you feel you have no alternative but to acquiesce. To paraphrase Monty Python, that's not liberalism, it's equivocation.
If it is decided that the nation can't deal with the truth - at least the new president must pardon the low level people convicted of the Abu Gharib crimes. I don't think there is much evidence left of what happened in any of a number of locations. When McCain conceded the noise that drowned out the cheers was the sound of the shredders coming on line.
So do we forget about the phone taps, the lies to get us into Iraq and all that goes with it also?
Where is the line?
The health care issue is BIG and I will support any way I can. But in the back of my mind I will ask 'Was it worth it'
I think one of the major reasons the My Lai Massacre is still remembered by all is that we did a brush over investigation and tried a couple of low level people - we were afraid to address the issues that allow that kind of thing to happen.
"but in the end they might not accomplish much either."
What they would accomplish is to state unequivocally that Washington is committed to unwavering moral leadership, whatever the cost. It's the absence of just that kind of leadership that has led to this point in the first place. Unless Obama faces down the white noise from the other side, this problem doesn't go away.
Putting murderers and torturers in prison never accomplishes much - in an exceptional society.
I want to say, let's pardon the guys who were following orders and not the ones who gave them, but then...my parents told me that "just following orders" is never an excuse, and that's what I told my children. Where did these people get off, doing what they did? My impression from literature, anyway, is that to the extent they have consciences, the torturers are now as maimed as their victims.
There is nothing confusing here.
Perhaps the problem for the US today is a lack of moral clarity.
We know morality plays no part in the decisions made by the executive or those in Congress and the wider public who support their actions.
We know that people mouth about moral hazard in the present financial crisis but the actions so far do not reflect it, and nobody has to take a fall.
People can talk about moral relativism while morality gets swept to one side.
And why? Because a minority on the right will throw a hissy fit if held to the moral values enshrined in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and our law.
Thousand of people have died. Thousands more detained, often for years, suffering unacceptable coinditions and treatment extending to torture. There has been rampant unexamined corruption of billions of dollars. Our Constitution has been abrogated and our laws run over.
And some people want to bury it all for a cooperative Congress.
The world laughs at the USA and all its pompous statements about justice and freedom. And cries, too.
What has happened to this place?
We got where we are today with Bush II (Cheney) made possible because of Ford's pardon of Nixon, Clinton's ignoring of Reagan/Bush I in Iran/Contra (which is incidentally likely the reason why they are so cozy) - from where did Cheney, Rumsfeld et al come?
When there's a cancer metastasizing it must be exposed and removed -completely.