Ending the reign of the Torturevangelists
I know the subject can be tiresome when discussed endlessly, but when you consider the damage done to our country, to Christians and to Muslims, such discussions become essential to righting a ship of state gone terribly wrong.
Emptywheel is onto the real backstory, it seems. Before discussing that, let me mention briefly another backstory.
Ken Silverstein’s article about Jose Rodriguez provides a bit more to the overall puzzle. However, it’s speculation whether or not Rodriguez is being made a scapegoat. He’s got a friend in a top Democrat, Silvestre Reyes, but whether that leads to anything additionally wrong is more speculation that serves, at this moment, to distract from the key issues.
It may be Pelosi, not Reyes, where a major part of the failure-in-oversight responsibility lies. Read Emptywheel to see why.
What’s starting to emerge, if you look at the big picture:
1) Both the Democratic and Republican Congressional oversight on the issue of torture has been horrid.
2) Those oversight errors took place more than a year after the 9-11 attacks, so they can’t be tied to the short term emotionalism that held sway when ignorance reigned about Al Qaeda’s capabilities and nearterm intentions.
3) The Democrat who objected properly within the classified network she was sworn to - Jane Harman - was replaced by Pelosi, who appointed Reyes to take over as House Intel Chair.
4) The actual crimes - the torture and the illegal destruction of evidence - originated in the Executive Branch, not the Legislative. The Legislative, under both parties, demonstrated a failure to perform responsibly. Both require corrective action. Only one can be corrected by prosecuting the lawbreaker(s). The failings of Congress can only be corrected by voters turning out the legislators who failed them, which means both the specific Republicans and Democrats.
5) In the meantime, other Democratic members of the House have every right to question Pelosi’s leadership. As one who admired her legislative accomplishments and lauded her ascension to the Speaker’s chair - the highest position in government any woman has yet achieved (except, perhaps, Edith Wilson) - I hate to see this turn of events. Though the evidence is not fully in, Pelosi’s motives will now be subject to very serious questions. Like, was this the key disagreement she had with Harman that caused her to replace Harman? And the biggest question…
6) Has Pelosi’s insistence on rejecting calls for Cheney and Bush’s impeachment been predicated on the knowledge that certain failures in oversight would come to light that makes Democrats look bad?
On the latter point, if this is the only example of Democratic error, her judgment should be questioned, for the criminal acts of the Bush administration far outweigh the errors Democratic legislators made - equal to their Republican counterparts.
But what if there’s more? Are there other serious misjudgments made by Democrats that are being hidden?
It’s possible that the answer is ‘No’ and that Pelosi’s errors are not that extensive. But the speculation about that distracts from the serious crimes, the greatest of which is the authorization of torture by the Bush administration. That’s where the public insistence for a remedy properly should be concentrated. And now that will be diluted to some extent by the fact that all but Harman failed their oversight responsibilities.
As citizens, the course ahead requires a thorough and non-partisan investigation of every aspect of what occurred. This ugly path of torture has now revealed another ugly facet of its morally deleterious nature. Its proponents and practioners deserve no space at the nation’s leadership table. But neither should place settings be held for those who chose to shut up and look the other way.
Torture is wrong and it’s destructive in more ways than anyone foresaw it could be. And though some may criticize my personal belief, i think everyone tainted by it, regardless of party, should depart from government service or be expelled.
6:30 am PST Update: Lambert at Corrente made a similar call before me.
December 9th, 2007 at 7:22 am
“Those oversight errors took place more than a year after the 9-11 attacks, so they can’t be tied to the short term emotionalism that held sway when ignorance reigned about Al Qaeda’s capabilities and nearterm intentions.”
clinton outsourced torture for his “extraordinary rendition” program. imo, there’s every reason to think that there are plenty of guilty people in both parties.
… and covering up and facilitating the continuing practice of torture is also a war crime. voting the guilty out of office is not enough, they belong in the hague standing next to president bush.
December 9th, 2007 at 7:36 am
You may be right Selise. Until we know exactly what they were told, it’s hard to fully weigh. At that point in my own learning curve, I didn’t know what waterboarding was or its history. So I’d grant some room for ignorance until the specifics are clear. If they understood it was torture outlawed by treaty, they also should stand trial.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:42 am
so depressing.
… and i agree with what you wrote above - each person should be judged separately based on their own actions.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:52 am
[…] (See my previous posts from earlier today on this topic here and here.) […]
December 9th, 2007 at 9:56 am
We had an earlier inkling of the extent of complicity among Dems and Dem leadership when Dick Durbin responded with appropriate outrage to torture at Abu Ghraib and he was forced, BY DEMOCRATS, to make a tearful apology on the Senate floor.