Politics Plaguing Proliferating Calls for Bush Administration Abuse Investigations
Bill Lindner
February 25, 2009
Storm clouds are reportedly brewing over the ongoing argument of whether or not to set up some sort of investigatory entity to expose the numerous violations of federal law committed by the Bush administration in pursuing the Global War On Terror (GWOT) and whether or not to charge them with crimes.
President Barack Obama -- who campaigned for the presidency on 'change we can believe in' has decidedly gone with more of the same on several controversial Bush administration policies -- is once again putting politics over the people -- and Congress, who repeatedly capitulated to all the illegal policies and actions of the Bush administration -- is split on hiding the truth from the people and protecting the most corrupt administration ever illicitly thrust upon the American people.
Pursuing the Bush administration abuses is a political hot potato for President Obama. Congressional Republicans are playing political games -- threatening the future because of their involvement in the past.
Some warn that investigating the intelligence agency interrogation tactics authorized by the Bush administration upper echelons could damage U.S. intelligence efforts and lower morale in the intelligence community, exposing the nation to greater danger. U.S. intelligence has been damaged for decades.
Some Democrats in Congress are calling for a "truth commission" to expose the abuses of the Bush administration -- with the possibility of offering immunity in exchange for testimony -- while others are calling for criminal prosecutions.
McClatchy News reports that Democrats are also pressing Obama's Justice Department to make public a report, that began under the Bush administration, on officials who crafted the delusional legal justifications for using controversial interrogation methods, and proposing legislation to tighten what presidents can claim as "state secrets."
President Obama hasn't yet said whether or not he'll support a truth commission, but has been evasive as far as pursuing criminal charges, preferring to look forward and leave the past behind. If he plans on running for a second term, he may want to look back.
Still Putting Politics Above The People
Republicans are threatening political war if Obama pushes for a truth commission or prosecutions of Bush administration officials, saying they'll read it as an abdication of Obama's promised bipartisanship.
According to McClatchy News, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, said "I don't think the Obama administration would want to have a truth commission to go back after he leaves office and the Republicans regain control, to see what he did," and "that's third world country-type stuff where you go in and prosecute; if you lose an election you get prosecuted. That has never been the American way. I think that the people of America would understand that that's not how this country is supposed to work."
Bond is one of the many corrupt Senators who aided and abetted the lawless Bush regime for the past eight years, and as usual, is lying to save his butt. Bond argues that airing interrogation details and any broad threat of prosecutions would be devastating to future intelligence-gathering, would embolden terrorists and could end up being unreliable.
Using the failed terror tactics of the past eight years of rule under the Bush administration coupled with the usual delusional logic of the Republican party, Bond goes on to continue that immunizing one person to get get them to rat will flow over to everyone else who isn't the rat and you won't get reliable information, and that bringing in the people from the CIA responsible for carrying out the dubious interrogations -- operating under orders from the Bush administration under skewered legal advice -- would be shocking and the impact on the intelligence community would be severe.
Nevermind the fact that the CIA has degenerated into the "American Gestapo" feared by its creator President Harry Truman. The CIA, as noted by the Intelligence Daily, has been corrupt for so long -- it represents 60 years of failure and fascism utterly at odds with the spirit of democracy -- its beyond redemption and needs to be closed permanently. Nevermind the fact that falsified intelligence information was used to start the illegal war with Iraq. Nevermind the fact that many died from the illegal use of harsh interrogation methods approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration. Nevermind the fact that the Bush administration, with Congressional complicity, perpetrated numerous crimes agains the U.S., the Middle East and humanity.
Senate Republicans, if united, can block Senate actions so any type of investigatory commission would have to evolve from the House of Representatives. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wants a commission or hearings that could end up yielding prosecutions and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has suggested she supports that by leaving the door open for such developments.
In their ongoing quest to put politics over the people they serve, House leadership has not agreed yet on a strategy -- many Democrats are allegedly reluctant to clash with the new Obama administration, believing that could weaken party solidarity and damage prospects for other legislation.
A more realistic explanation of why many in Congress want to avoid investigating the crimes committed by the Bush administration is because of the fact that for the past eight years, Congress has constantly capitulated and given its blessings to those crimes and the Bush administraiton.
Illicit Bush Administration Policies To Continue
Unless a smoking gun appears, prospects for immediate criminal prosecutions are nonexistent. Despite the fact that many Americans want more information about, and some accounting for abuses by the Bush administration, dysfunctional Congressional politics will continue ruling the day and the intentional impedance of justice will continue, but the concept for holding the Bush administration accountable is gaining support and the calls for justice are growing stronger.
President Obama changed some Bush administration practices and policies, but some of the more controversial ones continue being utilized by him. They haven't ruled out investigations into the past yet but President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA director Leon Panetta haven't appeared too eager to pursue them.
In some recent court cases, Obama's Justice Department has tried to hold back and dismiss lawsuits by defending Bush administration decisions to keep entirely too many secrets regarding domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens and the interrogation of suspected terrorists.
The Obama administration also reserved the right to continue the tradition of detainee renditions and in extreme cases, to hold detainees indefinitely as well as the right to use interrogation methods that aren't in the Army Field Manual.
Not Investigating Would Be a Serious Mistake
Two U.S. intelligence officials reportedly told McClatchy News that former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and former director of the National Counterterrorism Center John Brennan -- who is now an adviser to Obama on counter-terrorism and homeland security -- persuaded Panetta and other incoming administration officials that investigations into the Bush administration's anti-terrorism practices could open a pandora's box, convincing the Obama administration that investigations and truth commissions would do more harm than good.
No officials from the Bush administration, which Hayden and Brennan were part of, want an investigation because of their involvement in the crimes committed by the Bush administration.
As noted by Glenn Greenwald from Salon News, President Obama does not want to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the Presidency, meaning he doesn't want to give up the illegally gained powers that Bush believed he had.
As also noted by Mr. Greenwald, we don't place faith in the Goodness and kindness of specific leaders to secretly exercise powers for our own good. To be a nation of laws means relying instead on transparency and on constant compulsory limits on those powers as imposed by the Constitution, by other branches of the government, and by law.
The only way to reverse the flagrant illegal damage done these past eight years is by restoring the legal and Constitutional framework that makes a President's magnanimity irrelevent since his powers are exercised transparently and with real checks and limits. It's time for the truth to come out, it's time for accountability and it's time that Democracy and the rule of law be restored to the American people. In a lawful society, no one is above the law.
President Barack Obama -- who campaigned for the presidency on 'change we can believe in' has decidedly gone with more of the same on several controversial Bush administration policies -- is once again putting politics over the people -- and Congress, who repeatedly capitulated to all the illegal policies and actions of the Bush administration -- is split on hiding the truth from the people and protecting the most corrupt administration ever illicitly thrust upon the American people.
Pursuing the Bush administration abuses is a political hot potato for President Obama. Congressional Republicans are playing political games -- threatening the future because of their involvement in the past.
Some warn that investigating the intelligence agency interrogation tactics authorized by the Bush administration upper echelons could damage U.S. intelligence efforts and lower morale in the intelligence community, exposing the nation to greater danger. U.S. intelligence has been damaged for decades.
Some Democrats in Congress are calling for a "truth commission" to expose the abuses of the Bush administration -- with the possibility of offering immunity in exchange for testimony -- while others are calling for criminal prosecutions.
McClatchy News reports that Democrats are also pressing Obama's Justice Department to make public a report, that began under the Bush administration, on officials who crafted the delusional legal justifications for using controversial interrogation methods, and proposing legislation to tighten what presidents can claim as "state secrets."
President Obama hasn't yet said whether or not he'll support a truth commission, but has been evasive as far as pursuing criminal charges, preferring to look forward and leave the past behind. If he plans on running for a second term, he may want to look back.
Still Putting Politics Above The People
Republicans are threatening political war if Obama pushes for a truth commission or prosecutions of Bush administration officials, saying they'll read it as an abdication of Obama's promised bipartisanship.
According to McClatchy News, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, said "I don't think the Obama administration would want to have a truth commission to go back after he leaves office and the Republicans regain control, to see what he did," and "that's third world country-type stuff where you go in and prosecute; if you lose an election you get prosecuted. That has never been the American way. I think that the people of America would understand that that's not how this country is supposed to work."
Bond is one of the many corrupt Senators who aided and abetted the lawless Bush regime for the past eight years, and as usual, is lying to save his butt. Bond argues that airing interrogation details and any broad threat of prosecutions would be devastating to future intelligence-gathering, would embolden terrorists and could end up being unreliable.
Using the failed terror tactics of the past eight years of rule under the Bush administration coupled with the usual delusional logic of the Republican party, Bond goes on to continue that immunizing one person to get get them to rat will flow over to everyone else who isn't the rat and you won't get reliable information, and that bringing in the people from the CIA responsible for carrying out the dubious interrogations -- operating under orders from the Bush administration under skewered legal advice -- would be shocking and the impact on the intelligence community would be severe.
Nevermind the fact that the CIA has degenerated into the "American Gestapo" feared by its creator President Harry Truman. The CIA, as noted by the Intelligence Daily, has been corrupt for so long -- it represents 60 years of failure and fascism utterly at odds with the spirit of democracy -- its beyond redemption and needs to be closed permanently. Nevermind the fact that falsified intelligence information was used to start the illegal war with Iraq. Nevermind the fact that many died from the illegal use of harsh interrogation methods approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration. Nevermind the fact that the Bush administration, with Congressional complicity, perpetrated numerous crimes agains the U.S., the Middle East and humanity.
Senate Republicans, if united, can block Senate actions so any type of investigatory commission would have to evolve from the House of Representatives. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wants a commission or hearings that could end up yielding prosecutions and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has suggested she supports that by leaving the door open for such developments.
In their ongoing quest to put politics over the people they serve, House leadership has not agreed yet on a strategy -- many Democrats are allegedly reluctant to clash with the new Obama administration, believing that could weaken party solidarity and damage prospects for other legislation.
A more realistic explanation of why many in Congress want to avoid investigating the crimes committed by the Bush administration is because of the fact that for the past eight years, Congress has constantly capitulated and given its blessings to those crimes and the Bush administraiton.
Illicit Bush Administration Policies To Continue
Unless a smoking gun appears, prospects for immediate criminal prosecutions are nonexistent. Despite the fact that many Americans want more information about, and some accounting for abuses by the Bush administration, dysfunctional Congressional politics will continue ruling the day and the intentional impedance of justice will continue, but the concept for holding the Bush administration accountable is gaining support and the calls for justice are growing stronger.
President Obama changed some Bush administration practices and policies, but some of the more controversial ones continue being utilized by him. They haven't ruled out investigations into the past yet but President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA director Leon Panetta haven't appeared too eager to pursue them.
In some recent court cases, Obama's Justice Department has tried to hold back and dismiss lawsuits by defending Bush administration decisions to keep entirely too many secrets regarding domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens and the interrogation of suspected terrorists.
The Obama administration also reserved the right to continue the tradition of detainee renditions and in extreme cases, to hold detainees indefinitely as well as the right to use interrogation methods that aren't in the Army Field Manual.
Not Investigating Would Be a Serious Mistake
Two U.S. intelligence officials reportedly told McClatchy News that former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and former director of the National Counterterrorism Center John Brennan -- who is now an adviser to Obama on counter-terrorism and homeland security -- persuaded Panetta and other incoming administration officials that investigations into the Bush administration's anti-terrorism practices could open a pandora's box, convincing the Obama administration that investigations and truth commissions would do more harm than good.
No officials from the Bush administration, which Hayden and Brennan were part of, want an investigation because of their involvement in the crimes committed by the Bush administration.
As noted by Glenn Greenwald from Salon News, President Obama does not want to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the Presidency, meaning he doesn't want to give up the illegally gained powers that Bush believed he had.
As also noted by Mr. Greenwald, we don't place faith in the Goodness and kindness of specific leaders to secretly exercise powers for our own good. To be a nation of laws means relying instead on transparency and on constant compulsory limits on those powers as imposed by the Constitution, by other branches of the government, and by law.
The only way to reverse the flagrant illegal damage done these past eight years is by restoring the legal and Constitutional framework that makes a President's magnanimity irrelevent since his powers are exercised transparently and with real checks and limits. It's time for the truth to come out, it's time for accountability and it's time that Democracy and the rule of law be restored to the American people. In a lawful society, no one is above the law.
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