Q: What did Obama tell the Intelligence Community the other day?
A: “I am not your enemy. Yes, some of you did some bad [expletive deleted in case my Mom is reading], but I will not hold you accountable for a policy that your political leaders at the time imposed upon you. I will not punish those of you who participated in immoral and illegal actions, whether or not your participation was willingly or grudgingly given to the former administration. You’re off the hook.”
That wasn’t the explicit message, of course, but it was the implicit one. Which leads to my next question:
Q: Why did Obama release the torture memos if he didn’t intend to scour out the CIA and the military?
A: Two reasons, in my opinion and I don’t believe that either of them had anything to do with public pressure, leaks or whatever other cockamamie story was floated in the media.
First reason, was to reassure the international community that America is no longer a “rogue” state. It’s telling to me that the release of these memos, and the controversy it created, came after his first big overseas trips in which he met leaders in Europe, the Middle East and in our own hemisphere. Everyone knew the Bush administration had ordered and implemented a regime of torture and imprisonment. It wasn’t a big secret to anyone. And everyone at those high level meetings heard Obama’s reassuring words that the American government would act differently now than during the Bush years, that it would not act unilaterally in its use of military force, that it would abide by international treaties and conventions and rely upon international institutions and alliances. That is, that we would no longer act outside the rule of law, even international law.
However, to be believed, to be trusted, he had to take a dramatic step to show the foreign political leaders that he could and would change the way America operated in the world, even in those instances when diplomacy failed. I have no doubt he was asked numerous times in private meetings with foreign heads of state what he intended to do to back up his “words.” How did he intend to address the issue of state sanctioned torture by the Bush administration over the last eight years? What action was he willing to take to demonstrate he wasn’t merely a man of paper? After all, a charm offensive can only achieve so much if charm is all one has to offer. I’m not certain what Obama told them he would do, but I am fairly certain that his decision to release the torture memos was done after careful considerations of the effect it would have internationally.
And my semi-educated guess as to his second reason? Purely domestic politics. He does not want to let the Bushies off the hook completely, but neither can he ignore the political reality that many, many people among the general public and even in Congress had no issue with the use of torture against “terrorists,” international law and the Geneva conventions be damned. After all, we saw the Abu Ghraib pictures. We heard the reports about the miserable treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The cable news shows and the newspapers discussed and analyzed the technique of water boarding in exquisite detail. Many Americans simply didn’t care (that hard core 30% who backed Bush in whatever he did), and many others were perfectly willing to ignore the entire issue or simply wanted it to go away, like a bad dream from which one has awakened. In their minds the Republicans lost the election, and that was punishment enough.
Indeed, this was one of the dominant, underlying memes in the conservative media since Obama won the election. In addition to the charge that “torture works” and that releasing information about it would “harm our national security” (claims that most anyone willing to educate themselves about can see are utterly bogus), they also promoted the idea that any further legal action would be “piling on” and partisan vindictiveness, not justice. An easy message to preach since the Republicans themselves had used the Department of Justice as a mechanism to pursue partisan political goals and settle political scores. Why would the Democrats do otherwise when they assumed power over the Executive Branch?
Furthermore, Obama had promised a change in the political culture in Washington away from partisan bickering and fighting. He never promised trials for war crimes or violations of the international conventions against torture. His message of unity after decades of political polarization brought about by the Republican’s dominant electoral strategy of “divide and conquer,” worked to the advantage of conservatives now. Move on, they said in a joking reference to the name of largest progressive organization in the country. No one cares to rehash the past.
Then there are the members of Obama’s own party, the so called Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats in Congress, who for their own reasons do not want to be seen as leading a pitchfork brigade against Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, even if everyone knows they are guilty as hell. This loose coalition of DINOS and others who were elected with slim majorities in districts which had previously voted Republican, could give a flying fig for war crimes trials against former Bush officials. They just want to be re-elected. And, unwilling to educate their constituents about those crimes, much less lead them to support indictments, they stand as a major roadblock to any action which they believe could jeopardize their re-election chances in 2010.
So, for domestic political reasons, Obama cannot be seen as leading the charge against those former Bush administration figures who demanded and authorized policies of torture, unlawful detention and gross violations of the Constitution. He has other things on his plate, such as health care reform and the economy, for which he will need some cooperation from a select handful of Republicans in the Senate. Politically he has to be seen as reluctantly following others down the path that most progressives and civil libertarians want him to take. He wants to be perceived as out of the loop entirely, a mere pawn of the impartial wheels of justice and public opinion. Other Democrats in Congress can take a more prominent role in the torture debate. Because Obama has promised to be a different President than our last one who literally ruled by fiat, and especially because his control over his own party is much more nebulous than what Bush enjoyed when Republicans controlled Congress and did whatever the White House wanted them to do, he has to work behind the scenes.
Thus it isn’t surprising that the initial shot was aimed at the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who wrote those egregious memos justifying torture. That target was carefully chosen. First, it supports what he told the CIA worker bees the other day. By going after the lawyers whose work product justified the “enhanced interrogation techniques” Bush and Cheney ordered the CIA and the Pentagon to implement, he is literally giving the interrogators who tortured detainees political and legal cover.
By the same token, those lawyers didn’t create those memorandums and legal opinions out of thin air. Someone higher up the Bush/Cheney food chain requested/ordered that they provide ready made legal excuses for doing the unthinkable. By highlighting the work of the OLC lawyers, Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury, the memos shine the light away from the lower depths of the intelligence community where the dirty work was actually carried out and upwards toward the individuals ultimately responsible for creating this monstrous edifice of illegality and immorality.
Thus the release of the memos serve two purposes: 1) they reassure the CIA, etc. that Obama will protect them from any fallout and any future prosecutions for having “followed orders,” and 2) they fire a shot across the bow of former Bush officials that their culpability hasn’t been forgotten and won’t be ignored. In my estimation, this will be a slow process, much slower than we would like, one involving Congressional investigations as well as efforts within Attorney General Holder’s Justice Department to investigate these crimes and the people ultimately responsible for them. It’s a cautious approach, and one that will attempt to shield Obama from any claim that he is in charge of the process, or has any hand in it at all. It may not work, but it may also be the best we can expect under the circumstances. And perhaps it truly is the best way to proceed in a nation where so many people are so bitterly divided on the issue and where so many others are so ill informed.
Q: Why is the always so secretive former Vice President Cheney suddenly speaking to the media on the issue of torture and demanding the release of classified documents that support his claim that torture worked and saved the country?
A: I think you can answer that one, yourself, but I’ll offer my own answer to that question with another question: What does an wounded animal do when backed into a corner and surrounded by hunters eager to mount his head on their wall?
