Do you want investigations, or, a public kangaroo court?

(9:30AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

There are a whole slew of things I want to write about coming out in the news, but, this one needs to be written NOW.

There are only two ways to go on torture; a) There are investigations, or, b) There is a continued public kangaroo court that means nothing.  There cannot be both.

Follow me after the fold…

There are good reasons not to have an independent prosecutor take on the issue of torture and the Bush administration.  First of all, it is not the duty of a special prosecutor to bring criminals to justice; it is the duty of our Department of Justice.  Next, the authority of a special prosecutor is limited; the authority of our Department of Justice carries the full weight of law.  Lastly, any investigation by a special prosecutor may not uncover as much evidence as our own Department of Justice.  What there is NO good reason for are people clamoring for PUBLIC investigations.  Investigations are NEVER done in public.  EVER.

Yes, we all got tired of Bush’s mouthpiece ducking questions by saying, “it’s an ongoing investigation and I cannot discuss it.”  We got frustrated because we knew that most of those investigations would end in a whitewash.  But, that wasn’t the fault of the secrecy of the investigatory process, but, the fault that those investigations were conducted by people who should never have been conducting the investigation in the first place.

If Eric Holder announced tomorrow that he would investigate the Bush administration for war crimes extending from their policy to torture detainees, I would gladly listen to two years of, “we cannot talk about this case due to the fact its an ongoing investigation.”  Now, after those two years, I may be livid at the findings of that investigation, but, I know enough about how investigations are conducted to know that they will always be conducted in secrecy.  Yes, this extends to the Congress who has the authority to conduct its own investigations.

I understand Patriot Daily’s concern about Sen. Feinstein’s investigation.  But, I have to nix this sentence in the bud right now:

Given the number of pressing issues and crises facing the US, will Congress be motivated to conduct a public investigation after Feinstein’s probe is completed?  

Congress can, and does, hold public HEARINGS.  They do NOT hold public INVESTIGATIONS.  Nobody does.  Nobody ever will.

If all you want are public hearings, then you can bet there will never, EVER, be any accountability.  If you want an investigation, then you best be willing to put up with a year, or more, of secrecy while the investigators do their jobs.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants the Bush administration to be held to account for their torture program more than I do.  As a veteran, I know the catch-22 that the torture program put our military into.  But, as a former law enforcement officer, I am familiar with the processes that must happen for that accountability to ever occur.  Investigations are not for public disclosure.  It taints the process.  

We can be, and should be, irate that Eric Holder is dragging his feet.  We should be disappointed, at least, in President Obama wanting this to just go away so that he doesn’t have to make the hard choices.  But, we should never, EVER, be mad that an investigation is done in secrecy.  All of them are done that way.

This is a matter for the Department of Justice.  This is squarely in the hands of Atty. General Eric Holder.  He can begin an earnest investigation, or, he can not.  If the Department of Justice is once again an agency that is beyond politics, President Obama has zero say in whether or not Eric Holder starts an investigation.

The CIA investigating its own during the Bush years was a travesty of justice.  That the investigation itself was done in secrecy was normal.

Right now, President Obama and the Democrats are viewing this issue politically.  Get mad about THAT.  Get mad that Lyssa Peterson killed herself rather than torture prisoners and her death, her sacrifice, her moral judgment that she would rather die than commit torture, means nothing to those in power.  Be furious that the CIA, who did torture people, sometimes killing the prisoner, are crying about how unfair it is to hold them accountable for their crimes.

But, quit fretting about how an investigation will suddenly take this issue into secrecy.  It is supposed to.

13 comments

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    • rb137 on May 6, 2009 at 08:19

    But I think the real worry isn’t secrecy. The worry is that the whole thing will get swept under the rug — and any lack of transparancy means that we don’t know whether that happened or not. And I am angry about all of the things you suggest should have me smouldering. No doubt.

    Next is Lyssa Peterson. She did kill herself, but I don’t think the reasons are so simple as you suggest here. She clearly had a strong sense of morality — but I think her suicide was not a rational act based on her morality. I think it suggests that she understood something about torture in a visceral way — something that can’t be written into a moral code. See my comment to your last diary about that. It still applies even if she never tortured. I think it would work the same way for any empath.

    And this:

    Be furious that the CIA, who did torture people, sometimes killing the prisoner, are crying about how unfair it is to hold them accountable for their crimes.

    is spot on.

  1. And given a choice, I am more interested in a public airing than prosecutions.

    The information I see tends to indicate that the DOJ currently has an investigation underway.

  2. Europe will.

    Yes, they will.

    And everyone from Obama on down had better understand that.

    And you know what? I’d work for those people in Europe. I’d work for ANYONE who’d make an honest, honorable attempt to hold the Bush administration accountable for their war crimes. I’d finish breaking my goddamn back for them. For free.

  3. with your statement that

    NOBODY, wants the Bush administration to be held to account for their torture program more than I do

    I believe I do, and I’m willing to arm wrestle you for it.

    I don’t care if it’s secret, I don’t care if it’s publicly updated every Sunday morning on MTP, as long as there is an official and legal and thorough and complete and truthful investigation. I don’t care if it concludes before or after the next election cycle. I don’t care if it’s considered partisan or not.

    The American People deserve to know if the Administration of George W. Bush, purposefully and with malice ordered the torture of prisoners.

    We deserve to know if the President lied when he said “We Do Not Torture”.

    I mean, shit. . . How hard is it to put together the public facts that the Bush Administration attempted to change the definition of torture when it became public knowledge that prisoners were subjected to “harsh interrogation techniques”.

    We don’t need an investigation to know people were tortured, we need an investigation to hold certain people accountable for the crimes committed between 9-11-01 and 1-21-09.

    I would list those “alleged” crimes, but we already know…

  4. You know, that thing that the pledge of allegiance says is for all, along with liberty.  But I guess that’s not for us plebeians.

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