Two of the more egregious accomplishments of George W. Bush's administration are being examined in public forums lately: the legitimacy of the Iraq war, and the torture of suspected enemies. Still waiting in the wings are his domestic surveillance program, and assorted political retaliations, i.e. firing federal prosecutors, outing Valerie Plame etc.
Arguments were heard in federal court in Newark yesterday, in a lawsuit claiming that the Iraq War is unconstitutional. Plaintiffs are not seeking to unring the bell by halting the war in progress, but want a ruling on how the war powers are to be used in the future. Congress sought to evade responsibility in 2002, by writing Bush a blank check. In retrospect, that seems to have been a bad idea. This case could help us to get it right next time.
The American Civil Liberties Union succeeded in getting four memos released, which detailed the Bush administration's rationale for torturing people thought to have links to terrorism. This is the first step in what must be a comprehensive public exposure of the entire sorry mess. Cheney, and others seeking to cover their a$$, are loudly proclaiming the success of torture in preventing terrorist attacks, and issuing dire warnings to those who want to talk about it. There will be terrorist attacks, and an institutional torture program will not prevent them. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge our sins, and renounce future torture, to salvage our self respect.
There are many crises demanding immediate, decisive action by President Obama - to turn our economy around, and address international human tragedies in progress. There will be entrenched constituencies that will point to these demands, and attempt to derail efforts to hold those in the Bush administration accountable for their actions. The process to examine the Bush years must not be abandoned or allowed to wither. There were legitimate arguments against moving forward with impeachment during his presidency, one being that there would be time enough after he left office. Now it may be tempting to simply look ahead, and consign the whole sorry Bush mess to the dustbin of history. Such expediency would be negligent and irresponsible, and would impose dire consequences on our children and those of the next generation, who would be sent to kill and die in more unnecessary wars, or left to live under conditions of poverty, disease, discrimination and oppression also left unaddressed.
The seeds of today's involvement in Iraq were planted during Vietnam, allowed to sprout during the '70's Mideast wars, were cultivated during Iran/contra, and flourished in the failure to root out terrorists in the 90's. The chain could have been broken through responsible and transparent statesmanship, but wasn't. Our disastrous response to 9/11 was another link in the chain, and we now have another opportunity to break it.
The 2008 election campaign illustrated the improper historical association of events such as 9/11 and Iraq, the folly of our country's attempts to conduct international affairs unilaterally, and our failure to confront the moral consequences of "American Exceptionalism".
Mistakes were made during the Bush years, and more will be made by Obama going forward. They are an inevitable result of leadership initiatives. But to shroud those mistakes under phony security concerns invites careless decision making and corrupt influences. Each time we are driven by fear to surrender our judgment, without benefit of the facts, our democracy is weakened.
We must insist on a transparent process for evaluating and reporting on the causes and effects of the disasters that comprised the Bush presidency. Neglect of this critical step would certainly insure a repeat of this process, as well as inhibit the rebuilding of America's moral stature in the world community.
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I could not disagree more with practically everything you've said.
ReplyDeleteHonesty and transparency? Let's stick to the memos, here. To be honest and transparent, those were not the only memos. There were also plenty of memos documenting the SUCCESS of the techniques in preventing terror attacks. At least one thwarted attack was about cables being cut on the Brooklyn Bridge to cause it to collapse. (And I don’t want to hear the nonsense about “you can’t prove a negative, so we don’t know if it wouldn’t have happened”.) Why doesn't the ACLU seek, read and talk about those memos, also? No. They won’t.
And there were other memos evidencing the extensive research that went into determining the proper legal rights and courses of action prior to undertaking the interrogations. The FACT is that the suspected terrorists do NOT qualify for protection under the Geneva Convention or any rules of war. They don’t wear uniforms, they conceal their firearms, they are not regulated in a military-type hierarchy, etc, etc, etc. Legal conclusion – they are not entitled to any protections.
Next: Moral grounds. Sticking our moral nose into the air will not prevent terror attacks, either. It may encourage the terrorists to punch our nose harder, though. I would argue that the higher we lift our nose, the more arrogant we may appear. (“Let them each cake!”) The terrorists don’t care about our morality.
But even if neither torture nor morality has a deterrent effect, at least the facts are that waterboarding produced some results (and may certainly produce more results than highly moral inactions). And at the end of the day, I’ll sleep sounder if an attack was prevented because of waterboarding, than if one took place while we were making ourselves feel better and ingratiating ourselves to Europe with our high morality. The Europeans are not the ones attacking, or defending us. And their own morality leaves much to be desired. So I care less about their opinion of our morality when it comes to the safety of our society.
You said “there will be torture attacks”. That’s a position that must be articulated in this form in order to advocate taking a moral high ground. The fact is that for over 7 years now, there have NOT been terror attacks on US soil. All evidence and statistics point to our past actions and vigilance for this success, not some moral high ground. I’m not suggesting there may never be an attack. I’m saying that since these buggers are not entitled to any lawful protections of war, not entitled to protections of our Constitution, and would not have any protections from the laws of their own countries, we damn well better do what is necessary to get information out of them in order to prevent any attacks on our soil and any murder of our civilians. That takes morality, too. I’d rather live with this, than die with high morals and inaction. More importantly, I’d rather die for this, than watch from my moral high ground as my friends or family are murdered in a terror attack.
As for all these other investigations, slow down Perry Mason. History is replete with past Presidents and events that did not summon the wrath of such inquisitions or indignation. There are numerous reasons for this, not the least of which are necessary secrecy, security, government privilege and immunity, possible destabilization and on and on and on. Don’t judge so quickly, lest you want the same rules applied to our current President. Talk about violating the Constitution, he and the Libs have already done so much to trample on it and its principles. Besides, it would be a monumental waste of time to go back and try Clinton for the treachery of refusing to jail/kill Bin Laden when he was handed to us on a platter before 9/11. Arguably, that contributed to costing the country 3000 civilian lives. More moral high ground…
Let’s at least focus our energy and money on today and tomorrow. Look: BO has already burdened the next 2 generations of society with a crushing debt, with nothing to show for it thus far. I know, I know… be patient, give it time… Let’s make sure we’re taking the right actions today. That’s critical. We’re not some petri dish on which BO and Libs can run social experiments (which have failed in every other society.)
CORRECTION:
ReplyDeleteSorry, I misquoted you. My mental/typo error.
You said: "There will be terrorist attacks"
Not: "torture attacks"
One of the beauties in our country is openness and transparency. Because of this we know about the "torture" that took place during interrogations. Unfortunately, we can't keep this kind of stuff a secret (although we should).
ReplyDeleteWell said, Alex.
ReplyDeleteI would say keeping it secret would be make America like all the others.