More on those terror truth commissions
If even Harry Reid says the idea of an independent truth commission on supposed torture by the previous administration is a bad idea, I guess it won’t be happening—even though Paul Krugman and much of the Left of the Democratic Party may disagree.
Krugman says truth commissions are necessary: they’re only way to regain our “moral compass.” In his op-ed on the subject, he completely ignores the shocking, precedent-setting, banana republic, show trial aspect of the proposal.
But then again, Krugman’s ignorance on everything except economic issues is no longer news. And yes, I realize that his ignorance may be feigned and strategic—but my guess is that he actually is ignorant of the significance of what he is recommending here, and what a terrible precedent it would set.
Wesley Pruden understands, only too well. Read his op-ed for contrast. Here’s an excerpt:
The president’s on-again, off-again, maybe-he-will and maybe-he-won’t decision to punish someone who loosened tongues of Islamist terrorists at Guantanamo suddenly threatens not only the CIA interrogators and Justice Department lawyers, but even members of Congress. Maybe it won’t stop there: if the lawyers who offered legal opinions are at risk of punishment for their legal advice, why not the members of Congress who knew what was going on? Why not the secretaries who typed up the transcripts? Why not the interns who fetched the coffee? All were accessories either before or after the fact.
We’re on unfamiliar ground now. No president before has sought to punish his predecessor for policy decisions, no matter how wrong or wrong-headed…Exacting revenge for unpopular policies is the norm in the third world, heretofore more likely in Barack Obama’s ancestral Kenya than in America, more in the tradition of gangland Chicago than in Washington, where we count on cooler heads to prevail when raw emotion threatens to overwhelm sobriety and the undisciplined senses.
The president hadn’t counted on the rage of the jackals on the leftmost fringe of his party, organizations like MoveOn.org, which want only the “unity” of the lynch mob. They demand a hanging and the president promises only to think about it. Ever confident that his golden tongue, with or without the teleprompter, would mesmerize all foes and vanquish all rancor, Mr. Obama then threw George W. Bush’s lawyers to the mob.
Perhaps the president imagines that nobody cares much about what happens to lawyers, but he has set in motion something neither he nor anyone else can control. Some of the Democrats in Congress, eager now to join the mob, will regret what they cry for. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, for one, was a member of the House intelligence committee and sat in on super-secret briefings after Sept. 11. She concedes that she heard about waterboarding but she doesn’t remember exactly what she heard. Just like Barack Obama sleeping through 20 years of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s rabid sermons, Ms. Pelosi dozed through the briefings. Her colleagues on the intelligence panel say they remember her demanding that the CIA do more to get the “intelligence” to prevent another attack.
Perhaps that’s what’s behind Harry Reid’s reluctance to go there: just in practical terms, it can come back to bite them all in the butt. And although that’s hardly the best or most lofty reason to oppose the truth commissions, it’ll do for now.
It will be quite amusing if their own blindness to their derangement ends up killing them.
I wouldn’t bet on either outcome (prosecute or no prosecute), many of those in question have shown in the past that when they have control they think they can maintain utter control. Some have also show that as long as a republican gets it then it *must* be good (and never understand their personal consequences even after they are hit with them). Then again none make it to that point without *some* level of political acuity.
I also do not think that Obama really cares one way or another (and doesn’t believe it will impact him in anyway) and will do whatever the side pushing the hardest wants. Same thing with releasing said papers in the first place – he figured it was an irrelevancy and the people wanting it released were MUCH more aggressive than those not wanting it. Indeed, I rather suspect that if he thinks it will take down those big name Democrats I bet that goes heavily into the “plus” side of his cost/benefit analysis.
I’d say that it already has come back to bite. And that it must continue to do so, given the presumption of the oh so moral stance that the President made sure we were to understand constituted the context of his “difficult” decision to expose these memos, and only these memos, to public view. I cannot see how he can turn himself to say, “Good Americans, my stance, far from being the proper moral stance, turns out to have been an immoral, selfish and unthinking stance which will redound to the nation’s harm.” Can you?
using an immorality to acheive more morality is kind of like the logic that stealing from the productive and giving some of it to the poor will also work.
its not the age of aquarius
its the age of nefarious
[both seem to be started by fascsists]
The hubris of many (like Pelosi) allows them to think they can get away with any lies they want regarding their past actions. I think it is certainly bolstered by the fact they perceive the press to be on their side and will not bring up the past.
As far as the MSM goes they are pretty much correct but there is a huge thing out there called the internet and just about everything is out there to find.
Barack Obama said “Words mean something” – Pelosi, et all better take heed.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/obama-adminis-3.html
Wouldn’t we also retain some of our “moral compass” if we investigated people who made bad economic predictions? They’ve sure cost us a lot of popularity in the world lately. But that would include Krugman, so I doubt he’s as sold on that idea.
These traitors need to be told by the head of the Republican party that when the Republicans win the presidency or the Congress, the same sort of treatment will be meted out eye for an eye: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, even Soros will be tried for treason; Soetoro, et al will be tried for concealing his non-natural born citizenship; and all laws and treaties he signed will be voided.
Any fatalities caused by their failure to interrogate will cause them to be charged with murder.
It seems to me that prosecuting one’s predecessors in this manner ought to be fair grounds for impeachment. Convincing a majority of CongressCritters of that will be a problem, and unless the president’s own party is part of that, the attempt will be spun as a cover-up. If the media would do its job, people would understand the damage that is done by making it dangerous to hand over the reins of power. But the media won’t. They are not dedicated to the Constitution that defends them, but to the utopian ideals that would shred that very Constitution.
I have to confess to being torn by this issue. As much as I support the means used to try to protect our country from further harm in the hectic and frightening days that followed 9/11, and as much as I despise the willingness of democrats to damage our country in immutable ways (again!) with their politically-inspired antics, I can’t help feeling a little thrill that the duplicitous CIA that waged a secret war of convenient leaks against the Bush administration may get its comeuppance.
Seeing that malfeasant, disloyal, and disingenuous losers like Pelosi, Feinstein, and Rockefeller may end up being bitten by the tiger they tried to ride is simply icing on the cake.
Of course, I set all of that aside and strenuously object to Obama’s mealy-mouthed prevaricating and despicable (yet innate, alas) lack of true leadership ability. It is a weak leader indeed that allows the honorable actions taken by those doing their honest best to protect us to be called into question by rabid partisan cowards. In the vernacular, a true leader would crap or get off the pot, one way or the other, and not allow things to fester like this.
But Hogarth, President Obama is a strong leader with unparalleled moral vision. Just ask him. For instance, we can recall
The Washington Post reports on the debate within Obama’s “inner circle” about whether to release the interrogation details in four top secret memos. According to the Post, by the end it literally was a debate, high school style, with one official selected to argue the “affirmative” and another the “negative.”
The Post’s report may not be accurate and complete, but if it is, the striking thing about the debate was the absence of any argument in favor of releasing the documents other than partisan gain.
Powerline: A not so great debate
I think this marks the most dangerous turning point thus far for the Obama administration. We are all going to reap the whirlwind on this one.
I am surprised that the ABA and other lawyerly groups are not up in arms. If this goes forward it strikes at the heart of the legal profession.
Hogarth, I don’t believe the targeted lawyers are part of the CIA.
The chickens are already flying all over the place. This morning it is reported that the UN Grand Poobah for torture stating that the U.S. is REQUIRED by UN convention to prosecute. So if O does not prosecute, he damages our image abroad–heavens! If he does prosecute he will look like a fool at home because he will have a very hard time finding a crime to fit.
Oh, I forget. It is not his decision; it is up to Holder to decide. Kind of like Slick Willie after Waco. . . (sic)”I don’t know anything about that. You need to talk to Janet Reno”.
Damage has been done; and it may not be repairable.
Next we get the photos.
@Neo
Krugman is ignorant, or at least intellectually dishonest, about economic issues too! He hasn’t done any serious work on Keynesian macroeconomics yet somehow he always argues for its most extreme application.
The only serious economic work that he’s done has been on trade theory. He’s quite a good trade theorist (which is WHY he won the Nobel, not because of his op-ed columns), but he’s totally dishonest or incompetent when it comes to the domestic economy.
Been waiting for…
“You can’t HANDLE the truth!!!”
(Which begs the question, “Where ARE a few good men?”)
🙂
–
The U.S are meanies.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/21/nyregion/AP-US-Piracy-Suspect.html?_r=2&hp
I mean look at the picture of that boy smiling and the U.S. agents look so mean.
I’m glad that picture was released. It confirms we are a bunch of meanies…
How do we dare try this boy as an adult for piracy?
Paul, that line has been playing in my head for weeks. Downright prophetic.
“I mean look at the picture of that boy smiling and the U.S. agents look so mean. ”
I think, were I in his shoes, I would be smiling like crazy too.
First off he lived, those other unlucky bastards didn’t. Secondly the *worst case* is that he is found guilty as an adult and spends the rest of his life in extreme wealth compared to where he was and lives well into his golden years (most likely release from prison to actually live here before then). Worst case is that we set him free in our country (too cruel to send him back). I’m sure his lawyers have informed him of that already.
If you want to see non-smiles have a guilty verdict remanded back to a Somali prison or even back into a Somali court system.
I can already tell you that the sympathy given to a young person who is making their way in that hell hole the only way they know how is going to *more* than trump the plight of a cushy westerner who only had his life at risk for a few days (and delivering an Evil(tm) carbon emitting product to boot). Given that it is obvious he is guilty as hell his lawyer will strongly push for that idea too – it’s not his faults, it is societies (while even if it is true – doesn’t that mean he should be cordoned off from us anyway?).
At worst he will get a wrist slap, made a citizen (Somalia sucks, can’t send him back there you know), and either go on welfare for the rest of his life or revert back to crime enough to finally be jailed for life and still happy at the prospect. My guess is jailed as his first act of piracy/theft worked out so well I suspect he will think his next will too. And then we will wonder what went wrong in that whole chain of events, best if the Republicans are at fault in some way (had they funded prisons better he would be cured).
Well, I’ve already noticed that the internuts are calling the Somali pirate (“boy,” my ass) “that poor, black, Somali teenager just trying to feed his family,” who has been “persecuted” by the evil, rich, white America.
Re the Dimocrats’ kangaroo courts: I really, really hate those f*cking people. I do. They are so completely off the rails, I don’t even recognize my former party. The Bandar-log are in charge of our country, and God help us.
If America’s soul is to be reclaimed, Paul Krugman won’t be among those doing it. It was Krugman and the rest of MSM who saw to it that Americans never saw their savior for who he was and is. Truth isn’t something they seek; they seek to dismantle the United States, and at whose expense? Much of the process of their dismantling has been more hurtful than a pair of panties on some “freedom fighter’s” head.
The truth about the terror truth commissions is that George Soros with his legion of loons would get to poke a stick in our nation’s eye once more.
Are Pelosi’s protests not reminescent of the “I would never have voted if I had known….” garbage we heard after no WMD were found in Iraq?
How do we dare try this boy as an adult for piracy?
Yes, indeed.
He should have been hung from the yardarm on the Bainbridge. As an example of what happens to pirates we catch.
But then I’m old school. What would Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson do?
As for these “truth commissions”, is Obama willing to stand trial should something bad happen under his watch?
Pingback:The Mythology Of The 'Moral' America | Prose Before Hos