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.