Even if you support prosecuting the entire damned Bush administration for torture and any of ten thousand other crimes, a 9/11-style commission is clearly the right thing to do. A decision this consequential could make the country practically ungovernable if the administration imposes it on the nation from the top down. Actually, let me correct myself. A well-meaning administration might lose control if it tried indicting half of the previous one without giving the public a full accounting. With enough fear and made-up war powers Obama might pull it off but, fortunately, America has had enough of that.
Shortly after the Senate handled Alberto Gonzales with relatively mild gloves John Yoo declared that “…the debate is over. The issue is dying out. The public has had its referendum.” That was a lie. For all that it knew about torture at the time that Gonzales spoke the public could as well hold a referendum on the mating habits of an extinct species of penguin. Alberto Gonzales was confirmed on February 4, 2005; at that time the argument that a few misguided privates freelanced the abuses at abu Ghraib still sounded minimally plausible.
Setting aside his nonsense argument, note that even John Yoo, the guy who argued that war gives a president the power to imprison the Senate Majority leader without charges, crush children’s testicles and make the sun rise out of a second floor sink in suburban Atlanta, acknowledged that the president’s legitimacy depends in part on informed consent from the public. It means something that the eternal sunshine machine failed to wipe all 85 Federalist Papers from John Yoo’s eager mind.
Just one time I will say that Yoo is right. A democratic nation should never make a decision like torture or, say, mass prosecutions for committing torture without weighing the decision publicly. Mass pardons, if they happen, will at least give us a supply of well-placed officials who cannot plead the fifth.
ezdidit
It’s the Human Rights Violations:
Outrageous human rights violations, torture and illegal imprisonment of hostages at Gitmo and evrywhere else – these must be adjudicated by an international authority, and it will have to be the International Court at The Hague that determines how our "detainees" are disposed.
It is interesting that Obama may have to go through hoops to prevent this, since the Administration and Congress have demonstrated prejudice and have absolutely lost their moral and ethical authority in the matter.
Remand of Gitmo prisoners to the International Court may provide the very best evidence for BushCheney prosecutions.
Face
Why plead the fifth when you can just ignore the actual subpeona itself?
Not only cant Obama’s Admin get these clowns to sing under oath, he cant even get them into a damn courtroom.
Tim F.
That gambit only works when the DoJ plays ball.
Semanticleo
"the Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" by Vincent Bugliosi is a primer for this, but I believe the Obama administration will treat it like radioactive water which no one will carry.
If you believe in Karma, you may have to be satisfied with the prospect of the Rove Lemon Grove coming back as the cockroaches they mimic in their present lives…………..
4jkb4ia
Part of the point Tim F. is making is that a truth commission would help us to take responsibility so that we do have broad-based consent for something like The Hague to work. Enough powerful people doubt the legitimacy of the ICC for the United States.
That Scott Horton article was really good. I hope the attorneys at EW’s read it, too.
The Grand Panjandrum
Maybe an attorney who read’s this blog can confirm but accepting a pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt, no?
I can think of few things that would give me more pleasure than to see individual members of the Bush/Cheney Crime Cartel being frog marched out of their houses by law enforcement but that is my Personal Reaction and what should probably happen is a more methodical public search for the facts. Lay out all the evidence then build a consensus as to how to proceed with any prosecutions.
With any luck Bush and Cheney will flee to Saudi Arabia and live out their lives sequestered on a compound in the desert somewhere.
Tim H.
For now, positively. However, I nurse this hope that as the nation circles the drain, enough people will become so infuriated at their lower standard of living that Bush and his minions will be tried for war crimes or something as a proxy for this. Sort of like Al Capone. Killing Arabs is one thing; but killing 401Ks is serious.
MikeJ
I don’t understand the part about prosecutions being "imposed from the top down." Isn’t that the way every prosecution works?
Tony J
Seems like a good idea to me. Once it’s established any Commission working out of Washington will naturally take a long time to get its case right. There’s a lot of evidence to be collected and investigated, and the people holding much of it are going to have to be forced, one by one, to spill the details about their guilt.
Say, mid-to-late 2010 for the Commission to publish its initial findings on what actually happened, who did it, and who ordered it in the first place.
Then there’s the hiatus while the various legal cases against accused parties work their way through the system, which is another long and involved process.
Which would probably put any trials and convictions in the ballpark of mid-to-late 2012.
Given those possible dates, I can wait patiently for the conventional wisdom to catch up with reality once again. The resulting shitstorm for neo-con flavoured GOP candidates will fill my evenings with sparkles.
burnspbesq
@ezdidit:
Respectfully but strongly disagree about the appropriate venue.
We have to do this ourselves.
Scott Horton does a much better job of explaining why than I ever could. From his article in the December issue of Harpers:
Garrigus Carraig
Er, I don’t think the ICC is at issue here, as the US, AFAIK, is not a party to it.
RAM
I’ve thought for years that first we need to know what actually happened. That’s why I thought Congress should have been much more forceful in investigating the administration years ago so that when an administration that actually believes in protecting and defending the Constitution and upholding the laws of the United States got in a lot of the spade work would already have been done. But the weak-kneed Democrats in Congress the past two years refused to seriously investigate and when they did investigate, they refused to enforce their own subpoenas, thus expressing their own contempt for the law.
So, yes, by all means investigate, and I mean REALLY investigate, which means enforcing subpoenas and prosecuting those who lie under oath or who refuse to appear. And then, when clear cases of illegal activity are uncovered, prosecute those, too.
Otherwise, what’s the use of having any laws at all? Perhaps Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reed can explain what the threshold is for obeying the law before someone is considered criminally liable. Right now, it seems like smoke a joint and go to jail. Torture prisoners in violation of U.S. and international law and take a walk. I’d just like to know how far I can game the system before I’m criminally liable…
MobiusKlein
Another proposal – a Constitutional amendment limiting a Presidents pardon power:
No pardons shall be issued between the dates of 1 week prior to a presidential election until after the next inauguration day.
Pardons of cabinet members, white house officials, and people acting on the direct behalf of said members are subject to approval by the Senate in the same manner as approval of incoming cabinet members.
Zuzu's Petals
I’m embarrassed to say that John Yoo teaches at my alma mater.
I have a classmate who used to be an enthusiastic fundraiser and who now refuses to donate another cent to the school as long as Yoo is there.
TheHatOnMyCat
I’m opposed to the criminalization of politics and government.
I think — I’ve concluded by inference — that Obama wants no part of prosecution of the Potatoheads, and I would totally support that position.
We have bigger fish to fry right now. Personally I’m sick of government by people who want to make other people feel better about the past. I am more interested in the future.
I will be quite happy if the Democratic Party is the party of the present and future, and the Republican Party is the party of the past. The longer that is true, the better AFAIC.
Garrigus Carraig
@Zuzu’s Petals: You go to law school with the amoral professors you have, not with the amoral professors you wish you had!
passerby
I’m guessing that the legal cases against those who hold high positions in the abominable Bush administration have been in the works–under the radar–for years now.
Wouldn’t have the legal minds of our country been playing "what if the activities of the Bush administration (and their minions in the DoJ) are in fact unconstitutional?" I mean far beyond just cocktail party talk.
Imagine the volume of evidence that they would’ve amassed to date. Maybe it won’t be presented in an official court–but, maybe it will–and it will be good leverage for deal making.
Any financial crimes were committed not only against the American tax payer, but against International entities as well, thereby involving the IWC. Enough people have been burned by the dishonesty of the US Market system to demand someone’s head.
And wouldn’t this make the billions and billions of off-the-book dollars seizable as evidence? The mere freezing of these accounts would serve as take down.
In any event, the mass of evidence could be disclosed to a truth commission for all to see (at least and at last). Because we have no idea what’s going on behind doors. All we have is the empirical evidence that things have never sucked this bad before.
And then there are the War Crimes…
Please, allow me my little fantasy that there are white-hat wearing do-gooders in both our justice system and in our military.
Many would like to see a perp walk but, I’d be satisfied just to know the truth.
Truth Commission, yes indeed.
Objective Scrutator
I still think that my Epicurus parallel with torture holds here:
-If an Islamofascist is tortured, and he is guilty, then we have saved inestimable amounts of people from terrorist attacks. You people do realize that the CIA has stopped several terrorists attacks by torturing suspects, right?
-If an Islamofascist is tortured, and he isn’t guilty, then we haven’t really lost anything other than one person, and since he isn’t Christian, it isn’t anything we should feel sorry about.
-If an Islamofascist isn’t tortured, and he isn’t guilty, then we got lucky.
-If an Islamofascist isn’t tortured, and he is guilty, then we’ve probably lost several innocent lives, be they our troops searching for landmines, or innocent people in a tower.
Do you really want to live with the guilt of letting a dangerous terrorist get by without giving you information on how to extinguish a ticking bomb? That terrorist may have the key to distinguishing a deadly bomb, and if he doesn’t, then there’s probably someone else there that knows.
Wiretapping American citizens and Iraqis will reduce the amount of tortures, since it will also provide us with more valuable information. The CIA and the NSA must have every possible means of collecting data, and to deny them that data in ANY way is tantamount to terrorism.
TheHatOnMyCat
BWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Now we know what you do for a living, you are a screewriter for 24.
I hope your new season is better than the last one, you guys have been falling down on the job.
Mr Furious
Mass pardons, if they happen, will at least give us a supply of well-placed officials who cannot plead the fifth.
That’s the only thing I can hang my hat on…would that apply to telecom immunity as well? If they’re immune they cannot plead the 5th?
Zuzu's Petals
@Garrigus Carraig:
Very true. Fortunately, he was after my time there. Although I did recently find out my torts prof became one of the leading lights in the Intelligent Design movement.
Phillip E. Johnson
So much for radical Berkeley.
Objective Scrutator
"Now we know what you do for a living, you are a screewriter for 24."
No I’m not. I’m an ardent fan of the show, however. It’s probably the most realistic sitcom or whatnot on television today. And would you please answer the question?
"I hope your new season is better than the last one, you guys have been falling down on the job."
24 has been failing lately. They hired some liberal moonbat as ‘opposition’, too.
Garrigus Carraig
@Objective Scrutator:
Oh ok then. All we have to do is legalize wiretapping and pull out of the Geneva Conventions & change the Army Field Manual to legalize torture.
Of course, it’s not about wiretapping & it’s not about torture. It’s about establishing extralegal authority in the Executive. Which, done, btw.
Comrade Stuck
Or failing that, mass immunity, or at least to those who know where the bodies are buried. Otherwise, a legal quagmire and we learn nothing.
RAM
Objective: You people do realize that the CIA has stopped several terrorists attacks by torturing suspects, right?
No, I don’t, and neither do you, you moron. Sorry, I realize I shouldn’t feed the trolls…
Vincent
The problem with that position is that it doesn’t give any incentive for future administrations to avoid doing similar acts. The lesson they would take away is that if they run out the clock then anything they do is A-ok.
I would be interested in something like the Church commission of the 70s because I want to know what happened. Public condemnation of those involved even if they’re never prosecuted is necessary to promote the message of what is unacceptable for the government to do.
Garrigus Carraig
@Zuzu’s Petals: Oh how sad. Stanford must be saying to Berkeley, "Your tears are delicious."
Objective Scrutator
"Oh ok then. All we have to do is legalize wiretapping and pull out of the Geneva Conventions & change the Army Field Manual to legalize torture."
Sounds fine to me!
"Of course, it’s not about wiretapping & it’s not about torture. It’s about establishing extralegal authority in the Executive. Which, done, btw."
Well, the executive branch tends to be the most organized and the least conflicted, which is why we give them authority over dangerous manners such as this.
"No, I don’t, and neither do you, you moron."
So, do you favor completely disbanding all CIA interrogation systems?
"Sorry, I realize I shouldn’t feed the trolls…"
You’re right, an echo chamber is much more desirable for debate.
srv
Tim, this is just a throw away news puff piece. Obama is not going to pull the shades and bring sunshine anywhere. Otherwise, the guy leading the intel transition wouldn’t be a rendition fan.
We’ll get a nice speech, and something to the tune of "moving on". Same with FISA (oh, they’ll probably pass another law that expands FISA, and talk about how it fixes it… seriously) and every other civil liberties issue.
Those of us who don’t lap it up will be called whiners.
srv
@Zuzu’s Petals: Actually, Yoo is pretty popular at the Law School there.
You should watch (C-SPAN) or attend the GW, Stanford, Georgetown talks by neocons and ‘originalists’. The kids in the audience are very enthusiastic about unitary theory. I’d say the left is outnumbered 4-1, and the few who get up and yell are probably not even law students.
It’s why Obama’s punting will screw us. Within a generation, Cheney II will return and dust off Addington/Yoo and use it all as precedence.
Zuzu's Petals
@Garrigus Carraig:
They have their own shame:
Hoover Institution
Comrade Stuck
We have another future teller in our midst. And it foretells gloom and doom before Obama even takes office. Could it be Pluk, or any number of other Obama haters. Who knows. But like all the other FT’s before on the failure of Obama, it is likely to eat itself a giant shit sandwich and fade away to NQ, or Corrente, or somewhere else where idiots make their nest.
Zuzu's Petals
@srv:
Yeah, I understand a lot of students are conflicted because they see him as a good teacher despite his politics.
Student blog
Hyperion
this strikes me as the "enhanced interrogation techniques" version of "too big to fail". yes, people screwed up but holding them accountable would cause too much trouble. wtf?
TenguPhule
An honest Democratic nation shouldn’t even need to think about it.
Torture no.
Prosecute yes.
Anything to contrary is just bullshit.
srv
Ah, yes, those of us who had BDS, then HDS, now have ODS. You people work great, whether it’s on RedState or Balloon-Juice.
Comrade Stuck
@srv:
No sir, I doubt you have any of those maladies. your the type who gets it’s jollies from standing on its own soapbox and pointing fingers at whomever. A kind of one man truth orb, enlightening the ignorant masses on every side to his deep and sacred truths. Everybody is wrong but ye. Your not the first of these fools to come here.
Marshall
Go after the money. Prosecute the thefts of billions. Once people are convicted for embezzlement, it will be much easier to prosecute them for war crimes.
srv
Uh, I’ve been here longer than you TZ.
ninerdave
@passerby:
QFT
Garrigus Carraig
@Zuzu’s Petals: Ah yes. Of course.
JL
@Objective Scrutator: In your previous life were you a member of KGB?
Comrade Stuck
@srv:
Can’t fool you srv. Damn your a smart guy! or is it wfd
TheHatOnMyCat
Okay, well I didn’t write the post you are responding too.
I made my first posts here about March 2005.
You could be right about the seniority. Don’t know.
However, I’m better at this than you, so that counts for something. Of course, I am damning myself with faint praise here.
TheHatOnMyCat
Don’t blow your cover, dude. The spoof only works when you keep it in bounds.
Realistic? Yeah, okay. There is nothing even remotely realistic about the show.
The question? The ticking bomb? As soon as you can point me to a true case of ticking terrorist bomb and radical interrogation leading to last minute disarming of same, we’ll talk.
Take all the time you need. I am here all day.
TheHatOnMyCat
If the alternative is spoof-ass troll conversation, then, yes, yes it is, as a matter of fact.
Mentis Fugit
I still think that my Epicurus parallel with trolls holds here:
– If a blog is a parody, and it is treated as a joke, then we have saved inestimable amounts of time otherwise wasted in serious argument. One may see further standing on the shoulders of giants, but there is even some small advantage in standing on the faces of midgets.
– If a blog is a parody, and it isn’t treated as a joke, then we’ve wasted time and effort on specious argument, be it addressed earnestly, or with otiose snark.
– If a blog isn’t a parody, and it isn’t treated as a joke, then there’s always an outside chance of making an honest point successfully. But it’s not a lot of fun.
– If a blog isn’t a parody, and it is treated as a joke, then we haven’t really lost anything other than a minute or two per commenter, and since the snark is so delicious, it isn’t anything we should feel sorry about.
srv
Oh, I would not disagree, as I do not spoof. Well, at least not lately, as John and Tim obviously do not check IP addresses before going off on some random creation.
Stuck alternates between MUP, confused Paulian and semi-erudite. It’s an interesting mix.
TheHatOnMyCat
Say what? I don’t spoof, which I have stated here a hundred times in the last 4 years. I know a lot of people who do, but I am not one of them.
Almost as if he is ….. not ….. stuck.
Hmm.
Comrade Stuck
@srv:
srv
Shit, how about ppGaz debates between which is more realistic. The Wire or 24?
Litlebritdifrnt
"Do you really want to live with the guilt of letting a dangerous terrorist get by without giving you information on how to extinguish a ticking bomb? That terrorist may have the key to distinguishing a deadly bomb, and if he doesn’t, then there’s probably someone else there that knows."
I’m sorry but this line of reasoning died about two years (if not sooner) after 9-11. The prisoners who are in Gitmo have been there for at least five years (or more), they know absolutely nothing, zip, nada, zilch about current operations. Torturing them will reveal basically what the guy in the next cell said three weeks ago, it will not reveal any actionable intelligence. NOW, if they were to capture a current Al Quaida operative this week and he perhaps knew of an impending Al Quaida operation within the US or UK (or wherever) and he could provide information that would prevent said attack then by all means torture the living hell out of him until he gives up the info. However, the torture of the folks held in Gitmo right now is an exercise in futility. (Or an exercise in sadism you pick).
Cassidy
No American citizen should ever be handed over to an international body for prosecution. Our own justice system works fine.
Litlebritdifrnt
PS) I speak of this from a background of having gone through the prior worst terrorist times of modern history, the IRA’s reign of terror. I was in the military during the IRA’s worst times. I have been there, I have done that, I have (not) got the t-shirt cause I couldn’t wear it cause it would have made me a target. I have pulled 36 hour watches, I have had my bag searched every place I went, I have had to walk to the main gate and vouch for a bouquet of flowers that had been sent to me. I have hunkered down below my desk away from windows while the bomb squad blew up a package that had just been delivered. I have stood by a suspicious package placed in the seats in an auditorium to keep innocent civilians away while my American fiance screamed "you can see it from here you don’t HAVE to stand next to it" Been there, done that, don’t have the t-shirt. I have to say that you guys are babies when it comes to this shit. I STILL have to ask the bailiffs in court "who’s is this briefcase" which has been left unattended in the courtroom to which the response is "dunno, sure they’ll come back" if Al Quaida ever picks up the IRA’s playbook this country is fucked.
srv
See, that was a much better effort. But progressives don’t care about belonging. That’s their nature.
But troll or not, you would do anything to belong. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a complete hypocrite, it’s what you’ve always had to do to fit in. You can do it real world, you can do it virtually.
And that’s probably the nut – you were never able to get into the tribe you craved to be in. So you’re probably as close to them as you can get, at the very edges of it. But you’ll never have their respect or be one of them.
David Hunt
if Al Quaida ever picks up the IRA’s playbook this country is fucked
I’m not sure that they want the IRA’s playbook. Embaassy bombings, the 9/11 attacks, bombings in Madrid and London. They seem determined to try to pick up press by making grand gestures and attacking high profile targets. I think this is because we’re not their target audience. They’re trying to make an impression on people in the Muslim World (Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia). When they unite the Muslim World against the infidel under their leadership, then they’ll take the fight to us in a more organized and structural fashion. Until then, we’re part of their PR apparatus.
I was part of the July 4th events at the George H. W. Bush Library a few years back for two years running. At the time I was a little nervous about performing at something with the name "Bush" on the 4th, but I wouldn’t be nervous about it now. A library in Central Texas is not the type of thing these people are after, even if it would have killed more people. It’s just not the right kind of grand gesture.
Comrade Stuck
@srv:
This is the first step to recovery srv, even though it’s being projected onto someone else. You keep saying it and someday it will be okay to admit it’s yourself your talking about.
And BTW, I reside in my home country, and I feel quite comfortable these days. And I am very proud that my fellow Americans choose to disregard color and vote in the best candidate running for POTUS> and if and when he violates his word and doesn’t carry out what he promised, I will there hollering as loud as I can.
srv
Glad you realize that now. They really shot their wad, and while it did provoke the response they thought they wanted, it doesn’t give them a place to go. Anything less dramatic than a 9/11 would not provoke the desired response. Visually it would take a mushroom cloud.
passerby
And this brings up a curious point. If the terrorists actually wanted to terrorize us Americans, it’s no secret we have poorly maintained borders they could cross and cause any manner of trouble and dispruption, anywhere and in a sporadic fashion.
An abandoned shopping bag in a busy mall where Consumers are shopping themselves numb then filling themselves up at The Greasy Wok or Giant Cookie Boutique, would hardly be paid any attention.
But, this doesn’t happen. Sporadic events like these happen in Israel and in other parts of the world, but, not here.
To hear Palin repeatedly use the phrase about radical terrorists "who seek to destroy our freedoms" you’d think we’d be afraid to leave the house. But, we’re not.
Curious.
demimondian
I interrupt your regularly scheduled BJuice with the following announcement.
srv
No, you won’t. You’re projecting behavior which is not in your nature. You will find a way to be comfortable no matter how you have to contort yourself.
Comrade Stuck
@srv:
Yadda Yadda Yawn!!
TheHatOnMyCat
They are both complete bullshit.
Svensker
What Scott Horton said. Deliberate lawbreaking must be rooted out, one way or another. Else what will stop the next president from doing the same thing?
And torture? Completely repugnant, the bright line that must not be crossed. (Not that it won’t happen, of course, but it must always be illegal and frowned upon.)
Changeroo
Interesting comments here, most of which suggest a level if detachment from reality that should lead to the removal of all sharp objects from the various writers’ possession.
Given the state of the economy, however, government paid-for institutionalization appears out of reach at the moment. Perhaps this is the time for a "Jonestown moment."
Bob In Pacifica
And I wouldn’t equate the 9/11 Commission with a "truth commission". More like a lie commission.
Litlebritdifrnt
Passerby : we shouldn;t be afraid to leave the house, however we should be vigilant about the abandoned briefcase, there is a whole bunch of hurt in an abandoned briefcase.
[delurk]...[/delurk]
I would love to see the entire Bush apparat tried and executed by an international tribunal, but that’s not going to happen, so I set my sights lower.
The stolen 2000 election and the (probably) stolen 2004 election were the result of election fraud in two states (Florida and Ohio, respectively.) The question is whether these were ad hoc conspiracies between Republican Governors and Secretaries of State, or whether they were much better organized and continuing plots orchestrated by the RNC.
I firmly believe the latter to be the case, and that in fact, this conspiracy to commit voter suppression, voter intimidation, ballot destruction, and stuffing the ballot box has been in operation in every state of the union since at least 1984. Some people who were involved in this activity or at least know about it, must be coming to the realization that the DoJ is not going to be an arm of the Republican Party for four, and probably at least eight years to come.
I think offers of immunity to anyone who comes forward to reveal this conspiracy against democracy will give the greatest results per capita, and may create a climate where people involved in other illegal acts may be encouraged to think it’s time to reveal the truth, in return for immunity from prosecution.
Thoroughly discrediting the animals who have hijacked our country is the most we can hope for, but for me it would be enough.
passerby
@Litlebritdifrnt
I understand your point about the briefcase and agree about what they can contain.
I was just wondering why, given that the extremists supposedly hate America so much, why don’t they employ the briefcase? in random places and at random times? This would truly terrify us.
But, they don’t. Which raises a question (in my mind anyway) about the US Government’s accusations of how much "they" hate us and want to take our freedoms by terrorizing us.
Maybe the whole "They hate us for our Freedoms!" thing is just one big load of propaganda…so they can perpetuate their little wars and have an excuse to rattle their sabers and feed the MIC.
Just wondering.
passerby
delurk
I would also like to see justice for these arch criminals and though something could happen on an international scale, I won’t be holding my breath either.
But, that’s why I’m all for the truth about the financial fraud to come out. With an informed electorate, future chicanery can be take care of at the ballot box.
Seems as though we getting the hang of how to use the internet to more directly involve ourselves in the election process e.g. communicate, become informed and donate money.
tomjones
@RAM: The test is, if there’s a ticking bomb, and the only way you think you can find and defuse the bomb in time is by smoking a fat joint, then the country must excuse you getting high.
kwAwk
Okay….lemme see if I got this right? They guy who couldn’t stomach removing Joementum from the Dem caucus is going to try the Bushies for War Crimes? Excuse me for a sec…..
Hahahhahaha!!!! Lmfao!!!
Oh my the naivety! It makes my toes tingle!
You folks still have not learned to listen to what Obama is saying. He does not want to prosecute Repubs, he wants to sing Kumbiyah with them and enjoy tea and crumpets.
Objective Scrutator
"In your previous life were you a member of KGB?"
I know that reincarnation is a lie.
"I’m sorry but this line of reasoning died about two years (if not sooner) after 9-11. The prisoners who are in Gitmo have been there for at least five years (or more), they know absolutely nothing, zip, nada, zilch about current operations. Torturing them will reveal basically what the guy in the next cell said three weeks ago, it will not reveal any actionable intelligence. NOW, if they were to capture a current Al Quaida operative this week and he perhaps knew of an impending Al Quaida operation within the US or UK (or wherever) and he could provide information that would prevent said attack then by all means torture the living hell out of him until he gives up the info. However, the torture of the folks held in Gitmo right now is an exercise in futility. (Or an exercise in sadism you pick)."
We don’t just torture people for information about Al Qaeda, you know. Sometimes, it could be about some non-mediaworthy event, such as where the closest Shiite encampment to the Green Zone is. There is ALWAYS more information to be learned.
Still, your fourth sentence at least made sense. I do agree that we should put more effort into torturing those people, but that doesn’t mean we should suspend Guantanamo.
The only reason we should release terrorists is if they have proven themselves to be innocent, and not tied to any insurgent/terrorist groups. Otherwise, we might just risk another terrorist attack.
Balconespolitics
I’ve long believed that Al Qaeda’s goal was to get the US to respond in a stupid and bellicose way … which they succeeded at beyond their wildest ambitions, when Bush crossed the Kuwait border … but they didn’t want us to really take it seriously.
If Al Qaeda had ever set off a few suitcase bombs in major shopping malls on "Black Friday", they could have killed a whole Christmas Shopping Season across America, and set off a major economic crisis in our country. Instead, they sat back and let Bush take care of that.
passerby
@KwAwk
There are men and women serving in the military who have also sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
The Provost Marshall has the power to arrest the POTUS. Which is a good thing because that way, we don’t have to rely solely on these clowns in Congress.
The framers of the Constitution actually put some thought into this.
passerby
@balconespolitics
Good point Bal.
Guess they really do hate us after all.
TenguPhule
Yes, why spend money to do when he’s paid by taxpayers to do it for them.
scarshapedstar
Who gives a shit. They will collude and lie their asses off. And when all else fails…
"I don’t recall". "I don’t recall." "I don’t recall."
amocz
@Objective Scrutator:
When JL@42 asked if you were KGB in a "former life", I don’t think he was referring to literal "reincarnation". An attitide can be "reborn" without a literal "transmigration of the soul".
And in fact, the attitude that you embody is more-or-less identical to that of "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet Cheka (a.k.a. OGPU, NKVD, KGB at different times).
That attitude is that everyone must be assumed to be guilty until such time as they can be "proven innocent" by withstanding whatever torture regimes your twisted mind can devise; if they die under torture without coughing up any "intel", then they might have been innocent — sorry about that, nothing personal, y’know, just doin’ mah job — or else, maybe you are just not torturing them enough!
About that "ticking bomb"… well, of course one can’t know there is a bomb until one finds a bomb (duh!), and since we must assume that it is "ticking" (after all, what good is a bomb if it’s not ticking!) and there is NO TIME for all that damn due-process liberal horseshit which that piece of paper, the Constitution, blathers on about, the only sane and rational course of action is to round everybody up and start torturing everyone to death, and if at the end of this process we all are dead (except for you and your buddies in the secret police, natch) and you still haven’t found a bomb… then it must have been a bad tip, after all.
Relax…put your feet up…it’s Miller Time!
That is the attitude which you embody, and if I may be forgiven a brief editorial comment:
FUCK YOU!
And if you were to end up strapped to a board, while a team of professionals goes to work on your kneecaps and genitals with power tools, I do so hope that you will have the moral courage not to lie to the nice men (who will only be doing their jobs, y’know) and make up some shit about a non-existent bomb just to get them to, like, stop.
Hugh
Am I the only one who felt the title of this post was a bit intimate?
Batocchio
Okay, but you’re being faaar too generous. Yoo is completely disingenuous. He, Cheney and Addington deliberately or ignorantly misread the Federalist papers, which don’t align perfectly with the consensus document that is the Constitution anyway. Yoo has defended torture, he has fought against a debate in the public sphere, he fought against members of the Bush administration being read in (although most of the work there was by Cheney and Addington), and Yoo has insisted that everyone at Guantanamo is guilty, can be held indefinitely and denied a trial – although he hasn’t always been honest about those premises in his statements. Yoo’s ascent is directly attributable to his willingness to ignore legal precedent and common sense, and be a whorish legal hitman for a monarchists (pick another term if you like). He’s a crappy lawyer and an awful human being. He’s also probably a war criminal, and virtually everything he’s done or said in the past two years at least has been to cover his own sorry ass (case in point). Angler, Torture Team, The Dark Side, other books and several legal and human rights bloggers have covered Yoo and the rest of these scoundrels in much more depth.
I agree a 9/11-style commission might be a good idea, or perhaps better yet, a special prosecutor. Why give away the threat of prosecution, when the Bushies have repeatedly lied when there’s no threat hanging over them? Investigating the full truth is obviously necessary with or without punishment, but I wouldn’t discount punishment right away. It has great moral value on its own in this case, and the threat of it has value as leverage. In contrast with the telecom amnesty travesty, why don’t we get the full story first before these people are pardoned? It’s not as if their testimony is crucial at this point, since many events are already known and can be determined without their cooperation. Patience is exactly right, but that also means not letting these fuckers off the hook pre-emptively, with no guarantees, because you sure as hell cannot count on conscience alone here.