Who will defend the Bush administration’s decision to abandon the Geneva conventions, torture people, and spy on Americans without warrants? With a new Senate Armed Services report out that points the finger for these abuses squarely at the highest officials, the only question is: “what are we gonna do about it?” Are we going to have the Justice Department launch an investigation into these decisions? Are they going to ignore or quash individual cases of prisoner abuse and warrantless surveillance? Is there going to be some kind of bipartisan commission to look into all of this? How can we address these issues responsibly, because sweeping them under the rug is not a responsible option.
I know what I would prefer. I would treat all of Washington DC as a crime scene, and I would initiate a justice-based Reign of Terror down on anyone that broke any significant law during the Bush years. I would get to the bottom of their criminality on everything from the torture and illegal spying, to perjury and obstruction of Congress, to corruption in the Pentagon, CIA, and Interior Department. I’d seriously consider a few Hatch Act prosecutions, just to send a message. But I know that I’m not going to get what I want. I know that, but what concerns me is that I will get nothing of what I want. The people that did this to our country will walk, free to run for high office again, free to serve in future administrations. That’s my fear.
Yet, how can Washington avoid bringing a measure of justice? Can they just ignore the conclusions of the Armed Services committee?
Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.
Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.
The report shows how actions by these men “led directly” to what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret C.I.A. prisons.
It said these top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.
The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions.
Armed Services chairman Carl Levin told Rachael Maddow last night that ‘you can’t just make something illegal legal by merely getting some lawyer to say it’s legal.’ And that’s unambiguously true, unless those lawyers work in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Historically, decisions coming out of the OLC are considered authoritative, to the point of near-immunizing those that follow their guidance. But what if they say it’s legal to murder people, so long as you observe them breaking the law? How about saying it’s legal to torture people so long as you have a reason to suspect they mean you harm? Can any citizen do this, or just those in the government’s employ? Can the mailman torture drug-dealers on his route?
In any case, there needs to be a full accounting of what was done. If we can have that, I don’t foresee too many people will be willing to defend these criminals. We may want to move on, but part of moving on is ending the strained defenses of this administration too.
