Do The Crime, Forget With Time
That the Bush administration ordered waterboarding is a fact--they've proudly admitted to it. That waterboarding is torture is clear--we've prosecuted people for doing it to our soldiers. It did not cease to be illegal over the last eight years because John Yoo and David Addington wrote memos saying the president can do whatever he sees fit. That is the Nixon defense: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Not so, unless we allow them to get away.
Most politicians and pundits want to "move on" and think investigating and subsequently prosecuting members of the Bush administration for their numerous violations of the Constitution and International Law would be "bad for the country."
It was Bush that was bad for the country.
We face a lot of other problems that need our attention. But we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Why is punishing lawbreakers so controversial at the national political level? We clamor for harsh sentences for poor drug addicts, but when a president breaks laws or kills thousands we develop amnesia. We claim to be a nation of laws and not of men. Let's back it up.
The idea that doing this is "looking back" or "obsessing over the past" is an idea I'd like to hear a common criminal express when the police show up at their door. Unless we have entered the era of Pre-Crime foretold by Philip K. Dick, we have no choice but to "look back" as we prosecute a crime. They usually occur in the past. And prosecuting them today is a way to send a message to presidents in the future.
So let's look forward...to the fair trials we are obligated to give all of our citizens who break the law.
posted by Matt Bors at
12:15 AM
3 Comments:
In Bushian logic, it makes perfect sense - the inmates at Gitmo are CONSTANTLY committing the 'crime' of being foreign and Brown!
If Obama refuses to prosecute the Bushies, he's forgiving their crimes.
If he forgives their crimes, he's a DINO who lied to us and is unworthy of our respect. We voted him in to prosecute and rip down the crimes of the Bushies. If he won't do that, impeach.
I recently wrote an article about this topic.
Right now there is so much focus on the economy and Obama's first 100 days and all that. People care more about their 401ks than for people who have been tortured and held without charge for years.
Other presidents have done a lot of damage too, but never so overtly and in the face of the world without any hint of remorse.
Waterboarding? Please, that's the least of what we've done. Covering people in cold water and placing them on boxes, electric shock, hooding, placing hungry dogs two feet from prisoners' faces, handcuffing people to the floor with their hands between their ankles and forcing them to listen to death metal at 100+ db for up to 10 hours at a time with prisoners having to urinate and defecate on themselves...
And they've somehow convinced most Americans this isn't torture, and that it's even necessary.
The Obama administration needs to say, "The gloves are off" when it comes to processioning Bush, Cheney and Rummy. At the very least, those three should have a long detailed trail, hopefully ending with none of them every seeing the world outside a federal prison again.
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