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January 16, 2009

Frost-Bush
Posted by James Lamond

With President Bush packing his bags at the White House, and the transfer of power from one president to another begins, discussion has been taking place about the possibility of holding individual members of the Bush administration accountable for the abuses they committed while in office.  Paul Krugman writes today that allowing the Bush administration officials to get away with their crimes would be admitting that some are in fact above the law.  Matt Yglesias addresses one of the right's arguments  rightfully pointing out that punishments for crimes are inherently backward looking, because the crimes took place in the past.

The “advanced interrogation technique" under the greatest scrutiny is waterboarding.  The Bush administration, including CIA Director Michael Hayden and Dick Cheney have admitted to using, is considered a crime by the United States.  A former JAG officer writes in the Washington Post:

"The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war…  

As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the ‘water cure’ to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

So if the Adminstration has admitted to an act that has a history of being illegal in the US, why wouldn't there be some kind of investigation? Isn't Krugman right, that it would mean that they are in fact above the law?

The general argument against probing into the abuses and holding people accountable is that it would be divisive for a country that has already been so politically divided over the last eight years.  However, there are ways of coming to terms with abuse of power that setting the record straight for history that can less divisive than others.  For example East Germany extended public access to previously secret police files, Chile and South Africa set up truth and reconciliation commissions where victims could be heard, Czechoslovakia expelled members of the old regime from government.  Martha Minow writes in her book, Between Vengence and Forgiveness that "these are less aggressive responses than prosecution, but they may satisfy people's need to know what happened and to establish a clear break with the past."  While I do not mean to compare the Bush administration with Apartheid South Africa, the Stasi, or Pinochet, and many of these steps are not appropriate for the situation at hand there is still the yearning among among the people to "know what happened and break with the past. "

John Conyers makes an interesting proposal:

First, Congress should continue to pursue its document requests and subpoenas that were stonewalled under President Bush. Doing so will make clear that no executive can forever hide its misdeeds from the public.

Second, Congress should create an independent blue-ribbon panel or similar body to investigate a host of previously unreviewable activities of the Bush administration, including its detention, interrogation and surveillance programs. Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world.

Third, the new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been "tortured" -- her exact word -- in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible -- particularly those who ordered and approved the violations -- must be held accountable.

I fully agree with his first and second point, finding them to be the most important of any action taken.  Only by documenting the abuses can we fully understand what happened and work to prevent similar abuses in the future. 

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Gerald Ford made a gigantic mistake by pardoning Nixon. This has only encourage Cheney and Bush to break the law when i comes to torture, wiretapping, and lying to the American people about going to war. That is why it is necessary for Congress to prosecute those in the Bush administration most reponsible for these criminal acts since Obama appears to be relunctant to invesigate Bush and his cronies.

Well you must be happy James. It appears Obama is going to name Michael McFaul, the global liberal revolution fanatic and neocon bosom buddy you seem to admire, to the NSC's position for Russia affairs.

Say hello to more color revolutions, more NATO-mania and NATO aggrandizement, and more US government mischief and subversion in Russia's near abroad .

Say hello to more color revolutions, more NATO-mania and NATO aggrandizement, and more US government mischief and subversion in Russia's near abroad .

I like this idea, but anyone who lives in a city will tell you that there is a plenty large backlog of basic maintenance which could be funded immediately and would require very little in the way of political discussion to direct.

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