CNN Reports today, September 5, 2009:
"Could George W. Bush or some of his top aides end up behind bars?
"George W. Bush could be investigated for the steps taken after 9/11. It's extremely unlikely, but the Obama administration is taking its first steps along a path that could lead in that direction, with the investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators involved in the war on terror.
"'You don't know where these things are going to end up,' former CIA agent Peter Brookes told me. 'They could go to very high levels in the government.'
"The probe will focus on whether interrogators exceeded their instructions and broke the law when, for example, they choked a prisoner until he lost consciousness or threatened another one with a gun and a power drill.
"There is no obvious enthusiasm in the Obama administration for second-guessing the CIA's efforts after September 11, 2001 to keep America safe. President Obama has said several times he wants to 'look forward, not back.'
"Republicans immediately criticized the new investigation and even some Democrats said it would be unpopular.
"'This is not very good politically for the administration,' said Democratic strategist James Carville. 'The public clearly doesn't have much of an appetite for this.'"
The rest of the story is here.
There are several different things that should be said about this.
First, unless the international and national laws against torture do not apply to you merely because you are president of the United States, then yes, Bush and his gang should all end up in prison and face the Hague for crimes against humanity. The record is replete with documents and witnesses showing that torture (including most famously, waterboarding) and torture unto death (for at least one hundred detainees) were policy from the very top. Bush and Cheney have both said publicly that they approved of methods such as waterboarding.
Second, the policies themselves, incorporated in, among places, the now infamous Torture Memos of Jay Bybee and John Yoo, were instructions for torture. Exceeding those memos isn't the crime. The memos and presidential orders were themselves the crime. Those who went beyond the memos were simply engaging in what interrogators know as "force drift" where brutal methods give way inevitably to even more brutal methods.
Third, torture and torturing people to death doesn't keep Americans safe. It has the exact opposite effect of this. It makes anti-state terrorism worse. It makes America and Americans less safe. Let some non-Americans try publicly and before the world systematically torturing thousands of Americans, including a hundred to death, and doing it on American soil, and exactly how many Americans wouldn't be just the tiniest bit upset?
Fourth, I want to ask James Carville this question: If the American people don't have an appetite for prosecuting torturers, then the logical corollary of that statement is that you think that what the American people do have an appetite for is torture. Is that what you're saying?
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As a whole, we gave a silent wink and a nod for the previous cabal in power to do whatever they wanted to "keep us safe". Carville is right, people are not going to indict themselves when they are complicit in the crime. You can cite all the polls you want, but actions (or inaction) speak louder than a lazy phone survey.
I have tried hard to get a poll by just asking folks, and the answer i always get is that we should torture.
I liked Cheney saying he did not know if he would answer questions if asked. Yeah, right. Lawbreakers should be prosecuted, VP and the whole gang. Else wise we are all a nation of torturers and law breakers
I'm not advocating one way or the other. I'm solidly and sadly on the fence on this one.
As an analogy, there would have been no need for most civil rights legislation, if there weren't a large segment of the population who would otherwise have continued to violate civil rights.
And it wouldn't matter so much whether the Bush torture policy was prosecuted, if there weren't a large, vocal and influential constituency for continuing that policy.
If one of your children or your wife were taken captive and you had access to the person who knew where they were and how to get them back, how far would you go to get such information?
If you say "I wouldn't torture or use enhanced techniques", then I say you are lying.
Then, of course, there are those who honestly think that we did not torture anyone. They listen to Sean Hannity and others of that ilk and are convinced of American exceptionalism: If we do it, it cannot be torture because are motives are pure.
Until Americans stop burying their heads in the sand, and recognize that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, then the answer to your question is certainly yes, we as a people have an appetite for torture.
He should be investigated. If found complicit, he should be convicted and made to suffer whatever justice the law proscibes. But it just isnt going to happen. We will have to wait a century for information on this one.
First, blackflon's that he/she'd torture:
There are several reasons why torture is banned under any and all circumstances.
The foremost reason is that torture is immoral and barbaric. No person of conscience engages in it.
The second reason is that if you allow exceptions for torture, then who judges whether the exceptions are simply cover stories for tyrants and sadists? Any one could claim that they must do torture because [fill in the blank]. By allowing exceptions you are permitting torture to be thereby widespread and the norm. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? By engaging in torture you are creating the very scenario that Blackflon has postulated: people are going to be out there wanting to take revenge.
In addition, there are no scenarios in which you can say with absolute certainty that someone you have in custody knows what you want to know. All of the ticking time bomb scenarios are fictional for this reason: you simply can't know for certain that someone knows critical information. How would you know this? The only way you'd know it is if it's a 24 show in which the screenwriters have declared by fiat that you have this knowledge. In the real world, if, assuming the best case scenario for those who want to permit torture, you actually had someone in your custody who knew about a bomb about to go off, the very fact that they HAD this knowledge means that they'd be in close and regular contact with others in their conspiracy. Upon picking up this suspect, their co-conspirators would know in short order that one of their cell was in custody and would therefore have to conclude that their plot will shortly be revealed. They would then CANCEL their bomb and disperse to the winds. In other words, there are no conceivable scenarios in which torture would be a) effective, and b) justifiable on legal or moral grounds.
Finally, it bears repeating that the people who've been tortured (and many killed by our government) are Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis and assorted Muslims and others caught in the dragnets. They with almost no exceptions have nothing to do with 9/11.
As to Carville's point:
Even if it were true that a majority of Americans were for torture and for lawlessness, would that mean that the political leadership of this country should abide by that? What kind of legal, moral and if you will, spiritual leadership would that be? Even if every single person on this planet other than yourself supported torture and murder in custody would that make it right?
the concept of "force drift" I find very disturbing.
Not in this lifetime. But it's a lovely daydream.
I think that 9/11 was mainly arranged by Americans.
And it was a false flag operation two ways. First it was done such ways that they could accuse Osama Bin Laden and secondly accuse Bush and Cheney. I think that the real actors were somebody else than Bush and his 'gang'. I think that democrats were involved, too.
It will be difficult to get torturers prosecuted. But in any case torturing and illegal detaining of people should be stopped.
Any president from hereon out, including the present one, can say that torture's been legitimized. The rule of law is null and void. Separation of powers, weak as it is, is null and void. International law is irrelevant. American soldiers can appeal to no higher authority if they are captured and tortured/murdered. This is what is at stake.
Do we not, average citizen or other, all have a moral obligation to demand justice and prosecution? Do we decide these matters on the basis of whether or not we think we might succeed? Or must we not publicly take that stand or else be held accountable when all is said and done for all the monstrous things that have been and will be done in our names?
Without those investigations and prosecutions, we, as a nation, are lost in the dark. People continue to speak of the divisions that would be created by allowing these investigations and prosecutions, but they never address the divisions created by NOT allowing them, nor do they address the damage done on other levels to our national psyche.
Americans are judged by what America does, and at this moment in history, America, as a whole, is a criminal nation until we reconcile the previous administration’s criminal acts with the laws of the land.
My guess is that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, et al will never see justice and America will never reconcile their actions. I hope I’m wrong.
No, I think of 2 men. Mohatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.
After all, non-violence is the most radical thing a person can participate in. It is truly an act against nature.
So, I have to agree with Dennis and disagree with the hypotheticals of people like Blackflon. Until enough people say "No more" things wont change enough to be worth discussing.
The reason to drag all our sins out into the public is so that we say to the world "Yes, we got caught up in it and we were wrong. But we want to try to not do it again. And we are willing to not hide what we did."
Yes, this must happen. No, I dont think it will. Sorry.
The world that is being ushered in in which torture is acceptable is a world that most of us should shudder to live in. This isn't the end of it, there are more horrors to come. People must take a stand or be drowned in the whirlwind that we reap.
If, in the days that slavery was the norm, people said "Yes, slavery's an abomination, but it will always be with us" then would slavery have ever ended?
If, when women were treated overtly as the property of men and were consigned to the kitchens and bedrooms and denied a right to vote and an education, people said: "Yes, it's unfair, but it won't ever change," would the oppression of women ever have changed to the degree that it has?
If, when the Vietnam War was raging, people said: "The war is bad, but it will never end and protesting it won't make a difference," would the war have ended with the Vietnamese winning?
You can't decide whether what you do is worth doing on the basis of whether you will see victory. It always takes a lot of losing, sometimes even generations of losing, before there is a victory. But that victory wouldn't ever have happened without a lot of losing before then. People, as I.F. Stone has pointed out, need to be willing to risk losing for there eventually to be victory.
What too many don't understand is what we do unto others, we will also end up doing to ourselves. What is accepted there will be practiced here if nothing is done to completely and publicly condemn it. Carville can hand wring all he wants about political fallout, but the investigation that possibly leads to charges will take a long trajectory, and the facts and publicity can easily bring about consensus for action.
But GW behind bars? The Republicans would wail. However, if they lose in the midterms and in '12, there's a real possibility we can just release GW to them and they'll lynch him.
"Exceeded their instructions". In other words: those who followed the instructions, i.e. the torture memos, did not break the law. This is now the official view of the US. Everything mentioned in those memos is legal. And it wasn't Bush who made it so, but Obama. What a fine legacy.
I really only have one question to people like Carville: Will you advocate that the US does the logical and honourable thing and withdraw from the international treaties banning torture? If you're not going to help us eradicate torture, at least you should have the decency to say so.
But, I don't think that Obama is willing to do it.
So, I think that you should kick him out.
He is now responsible for torturing people as Bush was. Obama is responsible for criminal wars, too.
By the way, what Procopius said earlier in this comment thread is absolutely true: the very fact that so many Americans accept torture now underscores how important and necessary it is to emphatically reject it and prosecute those who have been responsible for it.
Norwonk: Precisely. The Torture Memos et al themselves have been legitimated by Obama even as they try to claim that they are against torture. This is his pattern in so many areas - to rhetorically condemn the most egregious activities and policies while in actual practice institutionalizing those very things, thereby making himself even more dangerous than his predecessor.
Al: is that a serious proposal?
Hannu: Agreed about their war crimes for both presidents.
Yes. I agree.
The question is, if Obama can be pushed to do the right things. Prosecuting torturers, stopping the illegal wars, stopping spying illegally citizens etc.
Maybe, if there would be some millions of people on the streets of the big cities demonstrating against the crimes.
But the problem is that Obama is already doing criminal things. And he would defend himself against becoming himself getting prosecuted for doing those crimes.
So, something like Al's proposition is one of the best possibilities?
And many, many Americans have no problem with this.
Will they?
How much time does a snowball have in hell?
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I liked that you tagged this with "spanish inquisition" & "torquemada", since these were the first thoughts that leapt to my mind. It is extremely unfashionable to equate current politicians with Hitler & the Nazis, but I believe that Cheney's name will make that list, if the planet survives long enough to record the history. Was Bush more than a complicit dupe? If you believe he's that good an actor, then he & various other henchmen join Cheney on the list.
I agree with all those who say that the only way that the USA's chief war criminals will receive justice is if they do so on foreign soil. But let's be frank -- which country is going to risk having the USA's military machine focused on them by arresting these mega-terrorists? I know that Canada didn't, when we had the chance. And not only because our current regime (which I despise) is a pack of neoCons.
After seeing the ridiculous over-reaction to a simple speech to school-children (unheard of when a Republican President did it) I am guessing that there are no depths to which the USAmerican general public will not dive. And I'm sorry about this, because I know many good, honest, just, thoughtful USAmericans who are bitterly ashamed that their country's current international image is no better than that of Al Qaeda.
We only need 1%. And to get 1% to act openly (which would reflect the sentiments of the majority and be supported by a majority) isn't the insuperable task that getting an actual majority to act openly and in the streets is.
The issue here is one of leadership. As you say, the thinkers are the minority. Yes - and what else can we expect? That minority has to fight to get itself heard and struggle to take the political stage in a big way extra-electorally and change the overall political atmosphere. The freaks and know-nothings that now dominate the airwaves, and those who collude and cave before the know-nothing irrationalists, need to be met with reason, passion, and uncompromising demands for justice.
The reason we're in the straits we're now in is not mainly because of the masses of American people's gullibility or apathy. Millions got excited about ending the Bush regime through elections. A majority actually voted against Bush both in 2000 and 2004. The problem is that voting doesn't do anything. It doesn't determine public policy. People are mistaken about the role of elections and votes.
Obama was never going to really bring change. He was a fraud from the start and that was apparent if people paid close attention to his actions and to his words.
An alternative moral and political leadership has to step forward to sway opinion in an entirely different direction. The mass public takes its cues on what's going on from the established authorities. The mass media (and esp. the right-wing media) and the two major parties are the problem. The solution lies in those who are in that small minority of the brave and aware to step forward and fight like hell against that illegitimate authority and put themselves forward as a legitimate authority, winning people to our side and waging the very big fight that is going to have to be waged. Our only chance is through a mass movement that isn't ensnared in the electoral arena.
I also agree with HV that Bush and Cheney and even Rumsfeld are not the culprits. They are merely the puppets of the multi-national industrial-military complex that President Eisenhower warned us about and like HV, I believe the Democrats are in on it, too, including our current President.
I don't think anybody makes it to the Oval Office without climbing in bed with the "powers that be," the 1-5% who control the world's major corporations and financial institutions. Speaking of which, can't we find a jail cell or two for the bankers that brought on the economic crisis?
I am against torture and am always amazed that the people who are for it usually claim to be Christians, the same Christians who are against everyone having health care in this country, support the death penalty, and don't want to give pre-natal care to poor women at government expense even though our infant mortality rate is higher than Cubas.