Where’s Our Truth Commission? [ by James Linkin] [News You Can Abuse]
May 16, 2009Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stuck her neck out on the defining issue of our time, the US violations of the Geneva Accords that took place during the Bush Regime. As I’ve said on numerous occasions on Outrage Radio, the US cannot reclaim the mantle of leadership in the “Free World” until those responsible for torture have been held to account.
I’m not naïve about this. Really. On more than a dozen occasions in the last century and a quarter, the US has forcibly overthrown the sovereign government of a foreign country. But before Bush/Cheney, we hadn’t done it since Panama. You may recall that Noriega, a wanted criminal in several countries, got a trial in Federal court. Under Bush/Cheney, our standards fell two orders of magnitude, below that of the world’s most authoritarian governments. They don’t waterboard in Russia, China, or even Iran. We have prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime for more than a century, and it has been regarded as torture since the Spanish Inquisition.
Pelosi’s claim that the CIA misled her or lied to her in 2002 in their briefing about Gitmo interrogations is a major event. The CIA is very good at these kinds of confrontations.
Most of the political pundits call Pelosi’s gambit stupid. It certainly distracts from Obama’s necessarily ambitious agenda to upgrade US domestic policy to that of an advanced industrialized country in, say, the latter half of the 20th Century, and it’s clear that he will compromise almost any principal to avoid such a distraction. But I think Pelosi is, on balance, courageous. She knows that she might well be damaged by the revelations. We should have no doubt that many, many Democrats were complicit in torture. That’s why her call for a Truth Commission is spot on. And by putting herself in the line of fire, she has gained Republican support for the idea from House Minority Leader John Boehner and from others.
Republicans believe that any involvement by Democrats validates their claims of hypocrisy, but that of course completely misses the point. This is not merely a Republican problem. Torture has disgraced not only our entire country. It has disgraced the very idea of democracy itself. Until we act to hold those responsible to account, there will be no redemption for America or democracy. If Democrats are also swept up in this drive for accountability, then we are that much more cleansed of these sins. A truth commission is a critical first step.
(2) Comments •
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Posted by replica watch on 05/21 at 06:55 AMthat’s what i too think that US govt. is intervening in the internal affairs of other countries a lot and it is due to this fact that the image of US in foreign countries have degraded a lot
Posted by on 07/25 at 01:56 AM
