Andrew Sullivan In The Sunday Times: Obama's First Problem Is U.S. War Crimes

[Hissyspit]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article5257597.ece

From The Sunday Times
November 30, 2008
Obama’s first problem is US war crimes
The president-elect has to take a stand on Bush’s dark legacy

Andrew Sullivan

A small and largely unnoticed spat among the transition planners for the president-elect, Barack Obama, broke out last week. It was the first genuinely passionate debate among the Obamaites and it centres on a terribly difficult and terribly important decision that will be among the first that Obama has to make.

How does he deal with the legacy of criminal actions of his predecessor’s administration when it comes to detention, interrogation, abuse and torture of terror suspects? That has long hovered in the back of the minds of those of us who supported Obama, in large part because he alone had the moral authority to draw a line underneath the criminality of the George Bush-Dick Cheney years and restore credibility and hon-our to America’s antiterror policies.

- snip -

This plea for understanding for the Bush-Cheney era did not go down well with the Obamasphere – the network of bloggers who helped build momentum for Obama’s victory. The influential blogger Glenn Greenwald exploded in anger; the centrist Democratic blogger Scott Horton urged Brennan to clarify, and then urged Obama to reject him.

On my own blog The Daily Dish, I wrote that if Brennan were picked, Obama supporters “will, in fact, have to go to war with Obama before he even takes office. And if Obama doubts our seriousness, I have three words for him. Yes we can”.

Brennan, facing more protests, withdrew his name from consideration last week. In the first skirmish over the issue in the Obama era, the antitorture forces won.

But the question remains: what is to be done? It is not Obama’s style to launch into a prosecutorial investigation of intelligence officials or to open new partisan wounds by subjecting Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld and others to war crime charges. He is intent on unifying the country, not further dividing it. He needs the professionals running the antiterror effort and, after eight years of Bush-Cheney, it is hard to find people not tainted by torture.

There is also the possibility that Bush himself might make a preemptive strike and, upon his departure from Washington, issue a blanket pardon for all his aides and underlings who aided and abetted war crimes in the past seven years. Leaving those pardons in place while prosecuting low-level officials or CIA agents would be deeply unfair. That was the rationale behind the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which gave retroactive immunity for war crimes to civilians in the administration, but not to the military grunts who enforced the policy, and which carved out a continuing exception for torture to CIA agents.

So perhaps the sanest way forward is a truth commission, modelled on those in Chile and South Africa that maintained governmental continuity for a while but set up a process that allowed for a maximal gathering of the relevant facts and names. The president could appoint a powerful and respected prosecutor to begin the process. The commission would focus not just on the military and CIA but also on the Bush justice department and Office of Legal Counsel, and the abuse of the law and its interpretation that gave Bush and Cheney transparently phoney legal cover for war crimes.

MORE

[IndyOp]

1. I like Sullivan. I like this article. I have only beef:

Obama will have no "first" problem: Problems 1 - 9,981 have already landed simultaneously in his lap at the exact moment that the media projected him the winner of the election on 11/4/2008. A few thousand more have shown up since then.

[EFerrari]

30. Yep. n/t

[leveymg]

32. '06 MC Act did NOT give retroactive immunity for torture and War Crimes to gov't officials

What it did was reserve punishment under the 1996 and 2000 Acts to "grave violations" of the 3rd Geneva Convention, which are now defined as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act

Two provisions of the MCA have been criticized for allegedly making it harder to prosecute and convict officers and employees of the US government for misconduct in office.

First, the MCA changed the definition of war crimes for which US government defendants can be prosecuted. Under the War Crimes Act of 1996, any violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was considered a war crime and could be criminally prosecuted. Section 6 of the Military Commissions Act amended the War Crimes Act so that only actions specifically defined as "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 could be the basis for a prosecution, and it made that definition retroactive to November 26, 1997. The specific actions defined in section 6 of the Military Commissions Act include torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse, and the taking of hostages.

Furthermore, the most obnoxious provision of McCain's Torture Bill -- denial of Habeas Corpus -- was struck down last year by SCOTUS in the Hamdan decision.

Don't let anyone fool you - the netroots still has power to persuade Obama on these issues. Keep fighting, and demand full prosecution of the Bush-Cheney Administration for torture and war crimes.

[puebloknot]

49. True! But he must delegate, and put his moral authority behind ...

... a truth commission or other body that will not only ferret out the truth, but take some kind of action to hold them accountable.

After WWII, with Europe in ruins and our country in a shambles economically, we still managed to hold the Nuremberg trials, execute the Marshall Plan, and get the country back on track.

Obama will need the broadest shoulders in all of time to be able to handle the huge number of problems immediately thrown at him, but if he caves on the matter of accountability for war crimes, and does the usual first presidential act of shoving all the past horrors under the rug under the rubric of unity, saving the country from trauma, etc., then he may not find that "he can" in 2012.

I'm rooting for the guy, but I'm also disturbed over his talk about "post-partisan" governance.

Nancy Pelosi assured us that impeachment was off the table because much weightier matters were on said table. Lip service has been paid to our problems, and the criminals have been allowed to run riot -- even after the Dems seized some measure of power. Small though it was, they squandered any chance to stand up to Bushco, because too much scrutiny would reveal complicity on the part of many Dems, in my view.

The New Deal took life at a time of crushing problems. Some forward movement toward solutions of survival issues will give hope to We the People, but we must not attempt to silence the many voices of those who have suffered under this criminal administration, nor should we support any leader who failes to stand up for the powerless.

[JDPriestly]

50. The only way to reach a post-partisan world is to rid all

politics of the kind of criminality that has marked the Republican Party since the McCarthy era -- no, since the 1920s.

Cheating, lying, stealing, those are the hallmarks of a clique within the Republican Party that has not only destroyed that Party but has been trying to destroy our entire constitutional structure.

No matter how effectively he governs, no matter how middle-of-the-road his policies, Obama's administration will end in disaster as did Clinton's (I view Clinton's administration as ending in disaster because Republicans were able to distract the nation from the important issues of our times to gossip.) if Obama refuses to prosecute criminal acts under criminal laws. No administration, partisan or post-partisan, can rule outside the law. And if Obama fails to uphold the law with regard to the criminal acts of the Bush administration, in time his government will not be viewed as strong or even legitimate.

It is going to be very difficult because as true as it is that Obama's administration cannot govern effectively unless they enforce the law against criminals in previous administrations, it is also true that the Obama government's administration of justice including criminal actions against criminal acts performed by members of the Bush administration and their staffs cannot be vindictive. Obama cannot (and will not) indulge in partisan vendetta, but he has to enforce the law and punish criminal conduct. If he doesn't, he and the nation will be very sorry for what happens.

[Zhade]

55. For me, it's an easy call -- he either holds criminals accountable, or I'm done with him.

I'm certainly not the only person who feels that way.

[puebloknot]

62. No, you are not. I must see a turning from criminality, or I'll take my vote elsewhere.

[puebloknot]

61. Agreed. Let Kucinich and Conyers take up the reins of justice -- not vengeance --

-- and let the world see that this isn't a matter of Obama being drunk with power. He *has* said he will review signing statements, and he's on the hook for that, in my view.

I also don't think a truth commission is appropriate. According to whose religion is there confession and forgiveness. Let individuals forgive or not, according to their own beliefs, but this country is based on constitutional law, and law is what needs to apply -- to include impeachment, even after the fact.

In my dreams, Europe takes up the cause of justice, and Bush, et al. are taken to The Hague and blind justice takes up the cause, not national rage here at home, though rage is highly justified.

I also worry that Obama would be in even greater danger than he already is, being all black and liberal and like that, should he use the power of his office to immediately start holding trials. But trials need to be held.

And sad to say, you remarked on the lack of integrity in the Republican party; too many Democrats have unclean hands, too.

Many have felt that the Nuremberg trials were vindictive payback on the part of the victors, and that they were legitimate only because the powerful *could* do it. If the Allies had just packed up and gone home, there would have been anticlimactic despair, I think, over a failure to hold anyone to account. So I agree that something must be done in America now to show that we haven't entirely lost our national soul.

[Titonwan]

73. YES WE CAN!

GOOD GOING! GREAT COMMENT. Bush and Cheney need to be charged with first degree murder on top of everything else. Cheney lied, troops died.

[puebloknot]

74. Welcome to DU. We can hope, can't we?

[dipsydoodle]

2. Good find that.

:fistbump:

[Starry Messenger]

3. k & r

[MadMaddie]

4. Obama knows that the world is watching..

This will be critical to hold these criminals accountable. They didn't just destroy America they destroyed Iraq and caused unrest around the world.

The world is watching how the US handles this crisis because it will detrmine how the world views the US in the future. How can the US go to any country and claim that the country is violating laws when the US broke those very laws?

[gratuitous]

16. The world is indeed watching

And we either deal with the high crimes and misdemeanors of our government, its crimes against humanity and war crimes, or someone else will. Now, it might be some organized tribunal that follows rules of evidence and procedure, allowing for fair trials that will assess guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Or, it might be an extra-legal, ad hoc group, that dispenses rough justice through terror dispensed from the point of a gun or in the blast of an explosion. If you don't mind being a potential target of such a group, then by all means work against any accounting of the last eight years. Because it won't make any difference. Or because it will humiliate our country and its leaders. Or because we can't let a bunch of foreigners order our affairs. Or whatever other bullshit excuse you can come up with.

Oh, and thanks a heap for making me and people I care about targets because you can't bring yourself to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work demanded by the crimes of our government.

[MadMaddie]

25. Well, I agree with you.

I had to read your post twice to understand you are directing your anger towards the government and not me.

I have always said that if they would have prosecuted Cheney, Rummy and all of the other Nixonites in the early 1970's we would not be here today with the country in such turmoil.

We cannot make the same mistake twice all people involved in * and Rove's government must be looked at and prosecuted if they committed crimes.

The Rule of Law demands it.

[gratuitous]

26. I guess I wasn't terribly clear

But I get very weary not just of the high crimes, but of all the excuses for not prosecuting them. Basically, it boils down to "It's just too hard!" Yeah, it's going to be difficult to unravel this ball of evil, but the health of our society demands it. Because as you pointed out, by failing to prosecute the crimes of past administrations, the criminals remain free to do it all over again.

[JDPriestly]

51. How can we demand trials and sentences for the cruel war

lords in Africa and other parts of the world if we excuse war crimes by our own leaders?

[puebloknot]

63. Unfortunately, we have a nasty history of going elsewhere and demanding ...

... that other countries comply with international law, while blatantly breaking it, ourselves.

The Iraq debacle is a perfect example.

Obama is stepping into a whirlpool. I hope he can keep his balance.

[bobd0]

5. Crimes were committed and in my world criminals can't give themselves immunity for their crimes.

These criminals must be brought to justice by the Obama administration or they become accomplices just like Pelosi.

[trollybob]

6. Obama should just turn these matters over to the International Criminal Court

let the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague deal with the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et.al. It's about time the U.S. rejoined the international community, which Bush rejected solely so he could operate outside the law (or so he thought).

[Bette Noir]

35. Good idea. He could recuse himself for conflict of interest,

and kick the case upstairs.

[PuppyBismark]

76. International Courts Can Ignore Pardons!

If * pardons his crowd, the International Courts can still prosecute the criminals. So if the USA doesn't have the stomach, perhaps the rest of the world will. Just a thought.


:) :)

[navarth]

7. It's good that Sullivan is trying to make up for cheerleading the criminals in the first place.

this helps a bit

[Critters2]

8. My first thought too! Hey, Andrew, where the hell were you when these

war crimes were taking place?

[UTUSN]

19. Agree with #s 7 & 8: The Democratic Administration doesn't need its priorities set by Andy & Tweety

and all of the rest who were agog and cheerleading and licking Shrub's nether regions. WE all saw who and what Shrub-CHEENEE were about from even before they got after it, so why couldn't all of these oh-so-smart-and-connected a-holes see things THEN, and why should ANYBODY listen to any of them NOW (or ever)?!1

[judasdisney]

21. Andrew Sullivan spoke out early & often. He backed Kerry, was labelled "traitor"

Aside from gay rights issues, anti-torture has been Sullivan's key issue.

Just take a random sample of his blogging from any point in the past 6 years and you'll see. Sullivan deserves some support.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

[navarth]

28. he spoke out early and often IN FAVOR OF BUSH.

I remember ALL TOO WELL what Sullivan did during the run up to the Iraq occupation and during the first years of it. He was a CHEERLEADER FOR BUSH.

As I said, what he's doing now helps. But it doesn't make me forget. And it WON'T.

[EFerrari]

38. Kennedy opposed civils rights first. Lincoln wanted to deport slaves.

People learn. We should encourage that.

[navarth]

52. well sure....

and like I've said already, this helps his case.

but I'm not about to forget the mountain of dead people we've created in Iraq, the possible consequences of it in the future, and the people who helped it along. I stay pissed off about that.

[ProfessorGAC]

69. Good Post

Nice and simple. Easy to understand. Easier still to agree. And it's a great point too.

People learn. We should encourage that.

Boy i like that.
GAC

[BlooInBloo]

9. As usual, perhaps, I'm with Digby - "truth commissions" are a joke...

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/torture-zombie-by-digby-i-have-always.html

... But I am persuaded by Dahlia Lithwick that such a commission won't get the job done, even if done perfectly and that prosecutions really are the only way to ensure that this won't happen again:

It's sweet and fanciful to think that with a grant of immunity and a hot cup of chai, Bush-administration officials who have scoffed at congressional subpoenas and court dates will sit down and unburden themselves to a truth commission about their role in the U.S. attorney firings. I agree completely with Charles Homans, who, in this must-read piece for the Washington Monthly, argues for the release of classified information at all costs. But I just cannot bring myself to believe that the full story will ever be told to our collective satisfaction. Even if every living American were someday to purchase and read the truth commission's collectively agreed-on bipartisan narrative, weaving together John Yoo's best intentions and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's torment on the water board, sweeping national reconciliation will elude us.

As my friend Jack Goldsmith points out in an op-ed today, we already know the truth of what happened. Not all of it, to be sure, but we know a good deal about who made which critical decisions and when. Just read Michael Ratner's devastating new book, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld. Read Philippe Sands' Torture Team. Read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side. Read this painfully detailed new report from U.C.-Berkeley, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights, chronicling the experiences of former detainees held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These writers are not crackpots. We may not have every memo, and we may not be able to name every name. But do truth commissions alone ever reveal the full story? If we decline to hold lawbreakers to account, we may find out a whole lot of facts and arrive at no truth at all. Is the truth that if the president orders it, it isn't illegal? Or is the truth that good people do bad things in wartime, but that's OK? Is the truth that if we torture strange men with strange names, it's not lawbreaking? What legal precedent will this big bipartisan narrative set for the next president with a hankering for dunking prisoners?

In any event, we already know what the other side of the story is. Michael Mukasey holds that those who authorized lawbreaking did so out of "a good-faith desire to protect the citizens of our Nation from a future terrorist attack." Witness after witness will tell the truth commission that they were scared; they were making quick decisions in the heat of battle, and that their hearts were pure. The real problem, they will go on to say, was that there was too much law—a crippling maze of domestic and international laws that paralyzed government lawyers and the intelligence community. Goldsmith makes that same point in his op-ed today, in arguing against criminal investigations or even a bipartisan commission: Under the threat of criminal sanctions or even noncriminal commissions, "lawyers will become excessively cautious in giving advice and will substitute predictions of political palatability for careful legal judgment." It seems that after 9/11, the solution to the problem of too much law was to simply do away with the stuff. And the solution to the lawlessness that followed 9/11? Do away with any legal consequences for the perpetrators. If there exists a more perverse method of restoring the rule of law in America than announcing that legal instruments are inadequate to address them, I can't imagine it.

She's right. I have been being overly "pragmatic" (depressed is more like it) in assuming that a 9/12 commission will be better than nothing. It would actually be worse than nothing, creating a shallow self-serving narrative of fine, hard working public servants who may have strayed over the line from time to time because they were only trying to keep us safe. It's always been out there. After all, Rep. Henry Hyde famously said about Iran-Contra:

"All of us at some time confront conflicts between rights and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil, and one hardly exhausts moral imagination by labeling every untruth and every deception an outrage."

...

There is absolutely no reason to believe that the next time a Republican is elected to the presidency he or she won't pick right up where they left off. That is the story of the last 40 years and until there is some price to pay they will keep right on doing it, escalating each time. For all the Colin Powell's who have come over from the Dark Side, there a many more who were trained in this worldview during this long conservative era. At some point they will try to keep power permanently. All it would take is just the right kind of crisis for them to justify it. After all, the precedents are all lined up --- normalized and legalized each step of the way by Democrats who didn't want to spend their political capital to stop it.

[stillcool]

11. They should be called "Cover-Up Commissions"..

seems like the only way the government will investigate is if no one is held accountable, except maybe a couple of fall guys.

[BlooInBloo]

12. Indeed.

[babylonsister]

13. It could buy some time until the huge problems are addressed.

Yes, this is huge, but there are some really pressing problems, like the economy, that need first dibs.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Yah. The "we'll get to it later"-thing ALWAYS works with the government. Be real....

EDIT: Besides, you're talking about in magic-pony-land. In real life, these "truth commissions" are NOT being billed as "we'll prosecute later"-commissions. They're being specifically billed as *instead*-of-prosecuting commissions.

[babylonsister]

22. So what's your suggestion, to appease everyone? nt

[BlooInBloo]

23. I'm not sure how to respond. Can you tell me which part of "I'm with Digby" was unclear to you?

[babylonsister]

24. I'm asking you, not digby. What to do, what to do, she doesn't know either.

We will all see how this is handled, won't we.

PS John Dean said nothing will be done, Jonathan Turley called us all wusses if nothing is done.


:shrug:

[Two Americas]

31. what to do

The only choice for us is to speak out or not. We speak for justice and against crimes against humanity.

What the elected officials do in response to that is out of our control.

[KoKo]

42. Babylon....you are thinking the "Commission" would buy us time?

I got suckered into that one...but I think: "How many times have we Dems been suckered to push Repugs lies and criminality "under the rug" only to see them COME BACK AND BITE US IN THE ASS?

We just cannot go on like this anymore and think of ourselves as other than Banana Republic or Soviet Style Government!

:shrug: How can we wipe out what this latest criminal Republican Administration has done to us and the rest of the world? How many thousands murdered and detained and tortured. What about the collapse of our financial system and environmental and pharmaceutical corruption? What about our "MEDIA" they corrupted to their OWN USE and our Education System that allowed RW Repugs to teach Creationism and dumb us down so that we are so ignorant with our media and schools that most folks think going to Malls or watching Discovery Channel or going to NASCAR RACES or following their SPORTS TEAMS are the sign of an informed and educated person? :shrug:

[Zhade]

57. The rule of law is broken. How can it not be THE single most important thing to fix?

What does it matter that you can butter your bread if the government can stab you with the knife?

[puebloknot]

64. I keep saying it: After WWII, there were huge economic problems...

... all over Europe, and at home. But the Allies administered the Marshall Plan *and* the Nuremberg trials in the same era. Europe was in ruins, but no one was saying that justice had to wait until everyone had a roof over their head.

I lived in post-war Germany, ten years after the war, and there were *still* major economic problems. People were living in gardening shacks and growing vegetables in a small plot, just to survive. It took a long, long time to recover from the war.

And I think if there's a show of moral fiber coming from the U.S., other countries might get on board with regard to holding Bushco to account. If we wimp out, who wants to go up against the bully with nuclear toys?

[KoKo]

39. After reading Sully and other's articles about why "Commission" is way to go...

as usual reading Digby goes to my soul as to why I became an activist after "2000 Stolen Election."

Daliah's article goes back to the "heart of it." If we wait for a Commission's Report (and surely those chosen will be of the Lee Hamilton, Warren Christopher "keeper of the flame" of the Military, Corporate, Industrial Complex" to decide if "crimes were committed" then it will be years and years when many of the participants are dead and will never be brought to a trial. THEY WOULD WIN! Just like those who conveniently removed JFK, RFK and MLK never were really brought to justice.

So...while my head goes with Obama and Pelosi's "Lets Move On" my heart and soul say: WE CANNOT MOVE ON UNTIL WE KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG and WHY, NO JUSTICE WAS DONE?

How can we do this?

Yet, I also know that there are those in the House and Senate who were complicit and will never work against their own participation to get the Truth Out and to keep their complicity secret for years they will definitely vote for "Commission!"

Obama doesn't like controversy and he wants to bring people together for the "Greater Good"...and so he will never go for prosecution of these criminals, either on Wall St. or in Government.

It's a real moral vice for many of us who've been watching all this since Clinton first had RW on his tail and through 2000 Stolen Election up until now.

Hard times for those with "conscience." Do we fight for prosecutions which would distract our new President or let it go and Move On for Years down the road with what could be another "9/11 Commission" or further back the failed "Warren Commission" that folks still are disputing and writing books about. :shrug:

Hard Times for Truth Outers.........:-(

[KoKo]

46. Digby Post is "Splash of COLD WATER" in the face of us who wanted Compromise

to help Obama. Reading that post from her...I got the "wake up call."

[Zhade]

56. Fantastic post. Wish I could recommend it -- I couldn't agree more with this.

NT!

[annabanana]

68. "the solution to 'the problem of too much law' was to simply do away with the stuff."

There it is.

When the Devil turns around, where will you hide, the forest of laws being flattened?

It is when the road is the roughest that we must stand against the wind of fear and emotion and put some trust in the rule of law.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. k& r

[Senator]

14. Only Impeachment Can "Solve This" For Obama

And allow the nation to move ahead in moral, patriotic honesty -- as opposed to whatever beltway/euphemedia dreck they are deluding themselves with at the moment.

Because the 2006 MCA did not (and could not) do what Sullivan and the rest of the DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy claims it did. McCain The POW Senator (as opposed to McCaing The Torturing Campaigner) actually won that round with the help of Sens. Warner, Graham, and others. Geneva was not violated by the actual, final legislation. The "retroactive immunity" is as real as Saddam's WMD.

Impeachment could be over in a week**. No, there is nothing to "investigate" or "discuss." All that is required is an up or down vote from each member of congress -- impeach/remove/oppose torture; thereby enforcing (not "restoring" or "reasserting") the US Constitution and our treaty obligations --OR-- defend/codify/approve torture and war crimes; thereby publicly declaring oneself a war criminal -- ripe for prosecution (failure to impeach achieves much the same result, btw).

This is why its been the Turd in the Potomac Punchbowl for years now. There is no fence to sit upon -- and inaction provides neither reward nor escape.

Impeachment remains or ONLY moral, patriotic option. Nothing else gets the American People off the hook or gets the Obama regime off to a legitimate start.

FWIW, it would also mean huge reduction in the final cost of the ongoing economic crisis.

---

** Impeach vote Monday. Trial and/or resignations Tues-Thurs. Then confirmation of Obama for interim status on Friday. There are no "rules" to stop any of it.

[Mari333]

15. agreed, If the Obama admin can 'find the time' for troop surges

they can find the time for this.

[Bette Noir]

36. Yeah, that'll happen.

The spineless, ballless Congress with suddenly grow their missing parts, and impeach this week.

On what world? We need an answer that will work in this world, with the government we have now. Turning the situation over to the Hague, with the explanation that we're too close to the matter to decide it fairly, sounds like something achievable.

[Senator]

71. It may well. If demanded.

But it's not those "missing parts" that are the problem. In fact, what must be done is to get across the reality that there is far more to fear from their impeachophobic inaction, than from actually living up to the oath they took to the Constitution and our treaty obligations.

Actually, it is a misunderstanding of how internatonal prosecution for war crimes (The Hague) actually works that is at issue here. There is no mechanism by which to turn over a situation -- with or without explanation -- so that we can avoid the inconvenience and unpleasantness of dealing with our own torturers and war crimnals (as the treaties our greater generations fought and died to forge demands).

Any international prosecution that is taken up would be a global recognition that we have failed as a nation to meet our moral and legal obligations. And that includes the impeachophobic DC-Dems; like Obama, Pelosi, Hillary, etc... And it that arena we don't get to "set the ground rules" according to our petty domestic political concerns.

It may even be that Mr. Obama himself is the one saddled with some "toothless but politically damaging" prosecution is some far off land. They might deem his, and Congress's, failure to stop bushcheney as a far worse offense that the torture itself -- and they might be right.

Any signatory nation (or group claiming to be acting under the color of int'l law) is free to charge, prosecute, and/or even arrest/abduct based on their own "petty domestic" concerns. It's not only liberals who have allies around the world happy to demonize American leaders to aid their general cause.

And while Obama, Pelosi, and the other DC-Dem impeachophobes may be gleeful in the electoral bounty they (wrongly) think their aiding and abetting after-the-fact for war criminals brought, they can expect none of the same from the neofascist co-conspirators here. The right would like nothing better than to be able to run "Barak H****** Obama: War Criminal" ads here for the next few election cycles.

With a bit of separation from the bush years and our tiny national attention span, the wingnuts might even try it anyway -- without formal charges abroad. They've got no problem hypocritically claiming that bushcheney were blameless because "his intentions were honest," while Obama was failing to act on his own stated beliefs. Remember, these are people who really think that not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth.

They could even demand obama's impeachment. And I, for one, wouldn't be able to defend him.

---

[unkachuck]

18. "How does he deal with the legacy of criminal actions of his predecessor’s administration..."

....in a straight forward manner....the scales of Lady Justice demand to be balanced....

[KoKo]

40. Your Avatar Photo of Rahm...is your guide. Move ON...because

"digging up the past" will always be BAD JU JU for any Democrat ...while Repugs THRIVE on it!

:cry:

[ooglymoogly]

47. Hell they are good at digging up the past even though it only exists in their tiny minds

And they always know exactly where it is buried.

[unkachuck]

48. it just goes to show....

....that there's some good in everyone, even repugs, scum we now must embrace....

....I'm afraid our shadow government isn't far enough underground....I think it will never to be put to sleep....the sheep have very poor memories and are easily fooled and distracted....they never remember their last sheering....

[judasdisney]

20. Pelosi, Reid & Schumer were likely fully complicit

And so there will be no Truth Commission. There will be nothing.

[alfredo]

27. Read "The Dark Side" by Jane Mayer, then start writing lTTE about

what you learned in those pages. Push for war crimes charges.

[ThomWV]

29. Nothing will do more to restore this country than to instate the Rule of Law

And that can not be accomplished by ignoring prosecution of those who have broken the law in recent memory.

[bluesmail]

33. Heck Yes. They may find other prosecutable acts as well as

other defendants. (I still think they're not going away peaceably).

[Richard D]

34. Truth commission

Really important. We must not let this not happen.

[Festivito]

44. If we cannot achieve justice, let US have truth.

Make law: hiding truth from the truth commission carries sentence of the crime protected by that hiding.

[KoKo]

37. kick...

[The Wizard]

41. The International community

has to step in and kidnap high ranking Administration officials and haul them off to The Hague for trial.

[annabanana]

43. This issue it "IT" for me. This issue is the bright line that I cannot

cross and look at myself in the mirror.

It is the sanctioning of torture in my name that jolts me from sleep and makes me cry. It is this issue that has me walking away from my dear, blinkered, church. It is this issue that makes it rough for me to go out in "polite company".

Knowing that these crimes are still unaddressed is a festering sore that cannot scab over.

Please, please, please, Barack.. .Do not let this chance to lift our Country up pass you by.

[KoKo]

45. "Torture in OUR NAMES!" It's the crux of it no matter how it's whitwashed over..

:-(

[Solly Mack]

70. Yes

What you said

This is "IT" for me as well

America can be the war crime nation that protects war criminals and refuses to hold them accountable - giving them jobs in colleges and universities, parading them on TV as experts, and considering them respectable advisers. (or equally as worse - whitewashing the truth that is more cover-up than anything, in an insulting attempt to claim accountability without actually seeking it or achieving it)

Or

America can be the nation that throws off the oppression of its war criminal government - that holds all the guilty accountable - that exposes the truth of that war criminal government - regardless of where that truth goes or who it exposes - moving forward and working toward an America that tries to live up to the ideals it claims to embrace....and does so by example...with deeds...instead of the cloying and nauseating speech of feel-good patriotic lies.



I freely admit to being bitter...for bitter is the taste left in my mouth when I think of what my government has done...

[Zhade]

53. As long as people are actually held accountable for their crimes against humanity, bring it on.

A whitewashing of blood-stained hands simply will not suffice.

[Danger Mouse]

54. Yeah, screw the economy, THIS needs to come first.

:eyes:

[Zhade]

58. See above -- and also look up the term "multitasking".

NT!

[Danger Mouse]

59. It isn't Obama's job to prosecute anybody.

He has more important shit to do.

[digidigido]

60. No, it will be his Attorney General's Job, and nothing is more important then the rule of law

[puebloknot]

65. Agreed. See my Post #64 above. nt

[meowomon]

66. War crimes must be punished

The world is depending on us to hold the government accountable for torture and other war crimes if proven in court by the evidence. Investigate for the truth and apply the laws fairly to the guilty.

Without this rule of law, an Obama victory is meaningless to me. It makes him as guilty as those who have oppressed people here and around the world. How can he look his little girls in the eye and tell them he allowed Bush and Cheney to get away with spitting on the foundation of our Democracy and Freedom?

[frog92969]

67. That's a non-choice for Obama

Return America to the rule of law,
or fail miserably and have that overshadow anything he tries to do.

Maybe he thinks he can pull a Bill Clinton and have 80% of the country forget.

Somebody has to nail these "homegrown terrorists" or next time they won't do it half assed.

[shoeshock]

72. George W. Bush Belongs in Prison

To ensure that no future president behaves like George W. Bush we must punish him. Not merely through the words of historians, but through the physical punishment that he has inflicted on so many millions of people. In previous eras citizens would have demanded “off with his head.” Now we must demand “lock him up.” How poetic for a pro-torture ex-president. As summed up at www.imprisonbush.com: “Bush must be made accountable to the law, to serve as a lesson to all those who would attempt to destroy the American system of laws and liberty for the sake of their own power.” This is a test for both President Obama and American democracy.


Via: http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/8857/2008-12-01.html

[MasonJar]

75. Most commissions do not work. Look at the 9/11 Commission, which

was run by a Bushista flunky and Condi ally/co-author.