Our whole governmental system is one big mutual masturbation party. It's not necessarily the biggest dick that wins, but it is apparent that we the people are getting fucked. I'm sorry to be so crass, but I'm livid beyond belief how the change so many had hoped for and believed in has amounted to nothing more than buying a new set and putting them on the same damn bed. It's a bordello.

I guess this means we no longer have a need for incarceration in the United States. Oh, that's right, Rule of Law is for peons like the rest of us, not the ruling class.

I meant to say "buying a new set of sheets and putting them on the same damn bed". I hate it when I type angrily.

This is a complicated issue, for both our Nancy Pelosi and our Dianne Feinstein, as well as the president.

The thing is, it looked great on paper for the president to say that if someone thought they were acting lawfully, i.e., the CIA agents who purportedly perpetuated the torture, that they wouldn't be prosecuted. But how about the levels between them and those they supervised, i.e., downward; and the levels between them and those that supervised them, all the way up to those justice dept. officials (attorneys) who wrote directives, and/or interpreted the law? That's where it gets sticky. And that's why they, being the administration, cannot carte blanche let everyone off.

I'm not sure I get how Obama is calling for changes to the ciminal code. That might be a bit of hyperbole. I do agree that we need a Truth Commission on the model of the South African one. That was a success because immunity from prosecution required a confession and complete airing of the crimes that had taken place. That process avoided punishing the small fry and letting the powerful walk. The critical thing is to make sure that these things aren't buried, classified for 50 years. I also get that Obama sees other priorities and many Americans could wait to see the Bushies prosecuted but they can't wait to have some financial security. Not saying these are mutually exclusive, but I'm saying the man might be trying to do one thing at a time.

I'm running out the door or else I'd write a more cogent post. I think, with your education and background, you know to what I refer.

Another thing, punishing people for the past acts is never an issue, unless statutes of limitations are involved. And federally, torture and murder are heavy crimes, and the judiciary has a long memory. They just need to get it handled in the right forum, or fora. And relatively soon.

The only other question is, How much of anything wrought upon us by the prior administration will get the Ford treatment? I.E., Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon to give a weary nation a break, something which outraged plenty at the time, but may have been wise?

somewhere in the dark corners of my head, I wonder if what they did is just incredibly more awful than what we already know ... and so we're being treated like children ... "protected" ... like we were protected from the bodies coming back from Iraq and the real images of 9/11. If we're old enough to vote, then we shouldn't be treated like children.

Sirenita, last I checked Obama has a whole army of lawyers in the DOJ who would be doing this work. So it is not like he would be involved in the process at all. So the excuse that Obama needs to focus on "more important things" doesn't wash. monkey fingered.

irritated mother: I do believe they are trying to prevent even more damaging material from emerging. I have spoken to someone who has seen the entire collection of photos from Abu Ghraib - only some of the photos have been publicly released. This person said that as bad as the pictures that have been publicly released, the ones that have been withheld from public viewing are "far, far worse."

Cartouche: in this case, the bed and the sheets are soaking in blood!

Kevin: yes, the rich and poor alike are free to sleep under bridges and beg for bread in the streets.

ConnieMack: Would disagree with you that Ford's pardoning of Nixon was a good thing. Had Nixon been prosecuted for his crimes, it would have made the crimes of the Bush/Cheney years and that of Reagan (for Iran-Contra) much less likely.

Sirenita: Obama's claims that he has and the country has higher priorities than the monstrous activities of the Bush regime being held to account so that not only are the guilty punished but even more importantly, it doesn't happen again, is pure balderdash and Obama knows it. We are obligated under the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter as signatories to pursue to justice anyone who has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. Obligated. Legally and morally. If we don't we are guilty of complicity.

JLee: yes, probably true, but that just shows the shortcomings of elections as a way to determine public policy. Elections are the equivalent of changing the seating arrangements on a boat that is without a pilot and going to crash. You got to do more than change the seats.

What was done in our name is far far worse than we know - there are thousands of lost communications, tapes and emails. This from the mba president who prided himself on meetings on time and jackets and ties.

If you believe we've not seen anything, but the tip of an iceberg, than there's a bridge to nowhere in alaska still up for sale. . . at a cheap and very affordable price, EVEN as the economy collapses around us.

Guns and butter for everyone!

Behind Blue Eyes is right that he won't do the work, but it would steal press time from his agenda. He would not be in control of the front page to the extent that he would be in the absence of an investigation.
At the same time, he has to please the Base of the Democratic Party, which is going to want something, as emotions run high on this topic.
To be fair to Obama, as a Republican, sort of, I might want an investigation, because it might blow back up in the face of the Left if for example Pakistan disintegrates, and then people will be like, uh, the Taliban have nukes, who can I torture to stop cities from being burned to the ground.
Clearly, the US was hurt by this, and it seems to me that Dennis is not totally wrong that you need to find out why this happened, and I think that goes to the lack of military experience at the highest levels, because the military did not want to do this for a variety of reasons, and that more generally, we want in the future to have better national security systems in place for dealing with unorthodox threats and I think especially, calming the public into not pressuring the politicians to "Do Something," when sometimes doing nothing is best.rated.

I meant that we disagee on part of this topic, not all. And that reminds me, as to the future, what do you think deters better?
Higher ups being punished, or people in the chain? I am curious. what you think. I mean, at the ground level, if people know they can go to jail, like the England girl, then maybe they say, scew you, I will take the court martial on an Article 15 I guess, and then maybe it doesn't happen in the first place.

Dennis, while this may be among my first comments to one of your posts, it is certainly not the first I have rated. I want to thank you for your continuing quest to hold the Obama administration accountable, and your push to have the rest of us do the same. I understand their desire to "move on" considering all of the problems we are facing. But we cannot do so with so much blood on our hands, blood that is not recent but goes back generations. The sickness in our collective soul makes it impossible to live up to our country's promise. If the people who are responsible for these atrocities get away with them, there is nothing to stop the politically powerful to use the same measures at some future date. Rated for unflagging, passionate resistance.

At the risk of being redundant, I'm reposting a comment that I posted to my last posting "Tugging the Torture Thread" here:

I copied this from DJohns' post that someone alerted me to earlier today. (I was going to answer his challenge but by the time I visited he had closed all comments):

"You get a lead that there is a high level member of this organization that is in the United States who is attempting to leave this country. You have him picked up and detained when he gets to the airport. You now have him in custody. Your intelligence, from multiple reliable sources, tells you that the 'chatter' is increasing and the time of the attack is imminent. You don't know where it will happen or when but you are convinced that it will take place and soon."

One of the fallacies in DJ's scenario is that the "chatter" convinces you that there is an imminent attack. Any group that is planning an attack like the one he's positing would have provisions for what to do in case one of their people gets picked up.

Even if the person was being held in custody and incommunicado, the very fact that they are incommunicado for an extended period of time would be a contingency that such a terrorist group would anticipate: anyone of us who disappears for a few hours will be assumed to have been picked up and we cancel our plans and disperse to the winds.

So even if their "chatter" and their intelligence agents are convinced that something was up, the jig is now up and there is no attack imminently coming, making the need to hurry up and torture this person for information moot.

If, assuming his scenario again, they are convinced that something might in the future happen, then they would have someone in their custody who they could question and perhaps get info from.

How then should they proceed? The appropriate way would be to

a) torture this person until he tells you whatever he thinks you want to know so you'll stop torturing him?

or

b) try to win his confidence and apply the time tested methods that have shown themselves to have the best chance of getting reliable info?

--
Don: Obama's claims that an investigation will interfere with his REALLY IMPORTANT agenda items are disingenuous. He knows what could come out - and as Mark has correctly pointed out, and as irritated mother suspects - are terrible, ugly, horrid things and this is trying to avoid.

What we need to do is read more about prisons. I have written about them several times. Some are privately owned, and some are publicly traded. They are run by Bushites. The profitable ones have no rehabilitation programs and their profits depend upon longer prison sentences and they lobby for long sentences for minor crimes, they lobby for misdemeanors to be elevated to Felonies and for the Zero tolerance three convictions and life programs.

Most of the inmates have been framed as increasingly often judges have been found to be on prison payrolls. The prisons corporations, build, staff and manage the prisons and are responsible in large part for our having the largest percentage of citizens imprisoned world-wide, including China, Russia, and the most intolerant sentencing system worldwide.

The prisons should be nationalized and redesigned to specialize in rehabilitation. Rapists, murderers and violent male rape oriented inmates, should not be in the same prisons as pot smokers and minor non-violent criminals. Prosecutors and University studies claim that 25%-42% of prisoners have been framed and that 62% of those on death row are innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. These profit-oriented prisons need to either be shut down or nationalized or the army needs to attack them, shoot the bastards, which run them and THEN nationalize the prisons. Get the Corporate jackals out of the criminal justice system. Jesus I believe said a good deal about the justice system, the word mercy comes to mind, and “as you judge, likewise will you BE judged” More importantly hanging on the cross, a death sentence were he for speaking out and a man whose worst crime was stealing.

All of that being said we need a Special Prosecutor to go after Bush/Cheney and others and maybe after Nancy Pelosi whose IQ and sense of ethics is challenged by the average duck.

I'm following the discussion closely - and appreciating the collective opinions and knowledge of all of ya'll.

May I put a turd in the punchbowl and remind everybody that everything, EVERYTHING, rides on whether this administration can be seen to pull this economy away from the precipice? 2012? How about 2010 mid-term elections? Do you think Obama has a snowball's chance in hell of getting his policies into law, the policies many of you voted for, without the slim Democratic lead that was acquired this election? That can all go away. Then it's an impotent one-term Obama and back to heaven knows whatever right wing nut job that carries on the neo-con plan full steam ahead.

Acting like the French after the fall of the Vichy government and hunting down all collaborators and accusing everyone in government at the time of being a collaborator--is that the front and center thing to do right now, even if it is the legally and morally right thing to do? I'm sorry, but the reason there is a black man in the oval office is because people voted their pocketbooks--their desperate, bankrupt, homeless-because-of-the-foreclosure pocketbooks; not because they were so wrapped up about torture or about civil rights erosions; even the war got shoved to a back burner, as intricately as it is entwined with our economic downfall.

The Republicans are not as stupid as you think they are. Do not misunderestimate them. Those "teaparties" that they threw, that every liberal pundit laughed at? They are trying to prepare the ground for economic discontent that will get them back into Congress come 2010. They are promoting as much amnesia as they can about the previous administration's part in our economic crisis and they are promoting a weird blend of anti-communist/socialist rhetoric and stereotypical big-government Dem imagery for Obama's stimulus--the stimulus that Paul Krugman says is not enough. They are thinking ahead and so is our President.

More important than prosecuting individuals is restoring the law to its pre-9/11 state and the more back-door way that can happen, the better. Any way that would keep the right from interfering with the process--in short, use of the judiciary to declare the MCA 2006, the JWDDA 2007, the Patriot Act all unconstitutional. Find the cases, being them to court, fund them through the pipeline all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. Restoring the law is more important than going after the bastards.

But above all, this economy has to be stabilized. Definitely do not go after them while the economy is still in jeopardy. I'm sorry to say this but I live in a liberal-left part of town in a big Democrat machine city and I have been appalled at the lack of concern or sometimes support for torturing our "enemies" that I have heard, or had in conversations with people, over the last 7 years. The real Joe/Jo Sixpack is out of a job and losing his/her house. He/she will not remember Obama for prosecuting Bush/Cheney and company without employment soon.

Dennis,

I didn't read all of the comments, but don't you believe, that again, it's all about fear? In other words, they're thinking, "If we prosecute a previous administration, what would or could they do to us?"

It's easy to be an armchair politician. I'm not saying what they're doing or responding to is right. But, think about this in human terms. What would you do?

I think the best way to deal with this or to get the result you want is to pile on the pressure.

denese

Great post and comments. Professor EmeritusPAB tops all with ...”we need a Special Prosecutor to go after Bush/Cheney and others and maybe Nancy Pelosi whose IQ and sense of ethics is challenged by the average duck.” or is it botox detrangement syndrome?

This is just another issue where the President is offered a clear choice, politics as usual, or change you can believe it. Based on the first 100 days, I’m not holding my breath or expecting to see the torture crew in orange jumpsuits... I hope I'm wrong, as I think a serious investigation/prosecution is needed for the country to heal...

Max writes: "More important than prosecuting individuals is restoring the law to its pre-9/11 state and the more back-door way that can happen, the better. Any way that would keep the right from interfering with the process--in short, use of the judiciary to declare the MCA 2006, the JWDDA 2007, the Patriot Act all unconstitutional. Find the cases, being them to court, fund them through the pipeline all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. Restoring the law is more important than going after the bastards."

Max, you can't restore the rule of law by skirting the criminal acts and by not prosecuting those who carried out those acts. To think that you can do so is like thinking that you can, as Frederick Douglas once said, have lightning without rain and storms. You think you can go up to a vampire and neutralize them and they WON'T NOTICE?

As I state at the start of my post, these acts are all of a common weave, you cannot separate the wars from the torture from the surveillance from the neoliberal economic policies. The GOP knows this, why don't some progressives?

Why do you think that the GOP and the rightwing generally is so insanely opposed to prosecuting people for torture? How come you're on the same side as they are on this question? Don't you think they know what's in their best interests? Doesn't it make you wonder whether you ought to re-examine your priorities?

How anyone can even consider seriously the idea that you can finesse the monstrous acts committed (and that are still going on under the guy you are so interested in protecting, Obama!) and still be on the side of being progressive is crazy my friend.

The other vital point that you're missing here is the fundamental unity between the Democratic Party and the GOP.

I agree completely! I almost...no, not almost, I feel so much anger when I think of what Bush and his cronies did the last eight years! How can we let it go? How can the government let it go? I don't think we should. Our country has done enough "pardoning" with some of our past presidents. It's time we say, "Enough!" Punishing the guilty...even an ex-president will send a message that will be powerful....a message that tells the world we're tired of the shit and that we truly are a country based on truth, integrity, justice and freedom. patricia k

I've said this so many times that is sounds like a broken record, but "The machine runs itself, regardless of who wears the crown?"

P. S. I love reading your posts, Dennis.

Over the previous eight years, we have seen how disastrous the consequences of having a President who doesn't know his place and oversteps his bounds, and Obama's behavior in this matter is not change I can believe in.

As long as we continue to grant this President or any other President authority they do not have, we are going to have a big problem. Under our system of government, the President's role is supposed to be a limited one -- and the worst of the previous administration's many grievous faults was to pervert that system.

Congress does not work for the President, the Attorney-General does not work for the President, they all work for us, and the are all sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land, they take no loyalty oath to the President. It is the duty of Congress to investigate these grievous matters, it is the duty of the Attorney-General to investigate and prosecute them. It is the President's duty to stay the hell out of the way.

Let's pretend for a moment that everything happened as it did during the last 7 years, except the housing and economic meltdown. Frankly, I believe Obama would not be President now without it, but let's say that, too, had come to pass. I would be the first to say, "Guantanamo is being closed, the notion of "enemy combatants" has been thrown in the circular file--full steam ahead with prosecuting the lot of them. And let the political chips fall where they may." We progressives could withstand the political blowback and hope to win another midterm and national election, perhaps even win, not only more seats, but putting more progressive candidates in those seats.

With the current unemployment rate at 9%, due to go past 10% before the year is out, the rate of foreclosures up 81% since last year and 225% since 2006, bankruptcy rates up 30% from last year--do I have to go on?--those for whom politics is a profession are painfully aware of what job #1 is right now. They know it because their jobs are on the line if they do not deliver. Sad as this may be, more Americans care about them not delivering on the economy than they do about not delivering on not prosecuting torture.

This has been the hardest thing for me to accept about my fellow citizens over these last years--the majority of them are ill informed about what their government is doing abroad in their name; as long as torture can be couched in Jack Bauer-style getting-the-terrorists terms, they could care less about who gets hurt. The fact that darker skinned people are getting hurt makes them care even less. The people who scrupulously, vigilantly care about civil and human rights, even in war, are in the minority. A righteous minority, a minority on the right side of history, but a minority. Heaven help the minority that doesn't recognize that it is a minority.

You want to win, I want to win. Being righteous is not enough. Let's use our heads as well as our hearts. Let's acknowledge that progressives are under the pressure to get job #1--the economy--done or everything else fails, including the hope of shifting the political tenor of this country to the left. Let's use all the tools, even the little , unglamorous ones, not just the big, public ones that it would make us feel good to see. Let's move on the big, public ones when we can weather the blowback.

Restoring the law would not be complete without prosecution, but heaven help us if we barrel into prosecution while ignoring the repeal or judicial revocation of those laws which overinvest the executive and deprive us of basic civil rights. If the following the law matters more than getting the terrorist, then restoring the democratic standards of law matters more than getting the specific war criminals. And yes, I do want to get them all; I want them all in orange jumpers behind bars; if it were not for my stand against torture, I would make sure they were all tarred and feathered and waterboarded.

As for Obama, I had no doe-eyed illusions; I knew he was a centrist when I voted for him. If you hold, as Frederick Douglas did about Lincoln, that he is a first-rate, second-rate man, all I can say is, that may be so, but he is our first-rate, second-rate man. Now, what are we going to effectively do to pull him, and the rest of the country, further to the left? Lincoln's official policy about slavery started at absolute neutrality and ended up with arming black men to fight and emancipation. I think that Obama has indicated that he is as malleable to shifting political realities. It's not all up to him.

You say start with prosecuting torture, I say start with the economy and in the course of getting people employed, demonstrate that neoliberalism is dead and establish a Green New Deal; show them and show them and show them the cost of the war; meanwhile, use all the tools in the toolbox to restore the rule of law and use the right tool at the right time. Who is right? Who is wrong? We will find out soon enough. 2010 is not that far away.

I think that it is important to have a look at 'the priorities' of the present administration.

You can see from Obama's inauguration speech that the priorities are to continue essentially the same politics as Bush's administration. To continue and expand the unjust wars started by series of lies, to continue and to amplify the surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens started because of the same wars.

So Obama is thinking that to start any kind of investigations on the torturing issue would harm 'the priorities'. Yes certainly, but isn't it the case that those priorities are exactly the things, which should be changed as soon as possible?

A great post. Thank you. Rated.

Sen. Reid (if I read right) wants to wait to find out the facts. If I'm not mistaking, both Bush and Cheney, have already admitted to torturing. What's to investigate except when, where, how, and, this one gets me, WHY?

At this point, I'm beginning to feel that the best one can hope for in this case is that Obama issues a pardon for everyone involved in the torture program. It would be a disgrace, but at least it would be an admission that they have committed serious crimes.

If you can't even get him to do that, legal precedence will effectively have been changed. It's not a crime if it's not punished. Waterboarding will be a valid option in the future.

Isn't it amazing Dennis? For a brief moment there I actually thought
Obama was going to have a full inquiry. The one hand appears to
be supporting an inquiry, the other hand, not so much. But gosh,
he sure sounds and looks good, doesn't he? It's all about
appearances.

Patricia K and Tom: I would like to add that the trajectory that Bush and Cheney continued started under Reagan and even more importantly, the use of torture and violations of the law, national and international, aren't unique to Bush and Cheney. The US government has used these techniques (e.g., Clinton started rendition) for a very long time. The difference is that torture in the past (with the exception of what was done to Native Americans and slaves) was in the shadows and carried out mostly by proxies of the US (mostly, not wholly) and wasn't widespread. Under Bush and Cheney, after denying for years that they were torturing, finally admitted it, although they still called it by other names. Under Bush and Cheney what had been in the past mostly carried out by proxies and in small doses by US personnel became standard practice and exceedingly widespread. This shift - which is all of a piece with their own moves to further expand the independence of the WH from any accountability to anyone or anything and its spying on us all, regardless of what the law said - is extremely ominous. Those who, like Max the Communist, still don't see this, are missing something extremely important. If they are allowed to get away with this, then all bets are off. Indeed, Obama's policies on the int'l level are more aggressive than Bush and Cheney (even though he is doing it under the rubric of more talking), witness Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on the domestic front and with respect to his policies on prisoners (of war), he is worse than Bush and Cheney with respect to spying ("sovereign immunity") and denying prisoners habeas corpus.

As Blue Roses and Hannu point out and as I argue in my post, not only is the torture issue intertwined inextricably with the rest of the horrid policies and practices, but the Democratic Party and the GOP are also of the same cloth. This notion that Obama and the Democrats is who we must side with against the really evil ones in the GOP is like falling as a suspect for the very old trick of "good cop, bad cop" and thinking that the good cop is going to rescue you from the bad cop.

Thank you Max Frank.

Scanner you are absolutely right. We don't even really need an investigation, Bush and Cheney admitted it a while back, and the documents from the lawyers et al are all enough to convict. Reid is engaging in an attempt to derail, deceive and delay.

Norwonk: pardons are shit. It won't mean shit. As I say in my blog moniker: Sometimes asking for the impossible is the only realistic path.

Dakini: Obama is a great magician: watch this hand, not that one.

the very old trick of "good cop, bad cop"

Yes. This is how I'm thinking about it. The bad cop is Bush, the good cop is Obama. But who are the people behind them?

The reality is that it is we who are behind them. They are doing it, because we let them to do it and as Stellaa wrote they are doing it in our name.

After 9/11 Bush told to the world that there are two kinds of people, those who are with him and those who are against him. Almost all 'the western world' and many other powers sided with him, Russians and Pakistanis, too and even Iran was in the beginning siding with America to attack Afghanistan.

If Osama Bin Laden is still living (what I doubt) he must be having strange thoughts. The most powerful army known in the history of the world to attack Afghanistan, because it was told that he is hiding somewhere there.

As told elsewhere in OS I never believed official ghost stories of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Arab pilots behind 9/11. I think that only Pentagon people themselves could plan and do such an attack on Pentagon and the only realistic explanation for the towers to collapse is that they were put down by beforehand installed explosives.