A pattern of increasing desperation on the part of the perpetrators is evident in the ever-unfolding drama over the Bush Administration's torture policies. It should be clear by now why former Vice President Dick Cheney is out in front of a camera seemingly every day now. He is trying to save his tail from the slammer.
The principal question regarding the issue of torture has gone through several stages, each based on the rationalizations or alibis dreamed up by the war criminals themselves in the face of each successive revelation. At first the issue was whether it was happening. After Abu Ghraib that became whether it was the work of a few bad apples. After it became clear senior officials gave the go-ahead the next dodge was whether it was illegal. Of late that one has morphed into whether it was effective. The latest is a question of the date Nancy Pelosi first knew about it for certain.
The one thing these excuses all have in common is their irrelevance to the matter at hand. The United States Constitution, U.S. statutes and the United Nations Charter (as a ratified treaty it has the full force of U.S. law) have all been violated. If we are a nation of laws under the rule of law we cannot pick and choose the laws to follow when it is convenient to do so.
The excuses offered are strikingly reminiscent of the same kinds of sorry devices I heard from adolescent miscreants as a middle school teacher for seventeen years: I didn't know it was against the rules. I was just holding it for somebody else. It was somebody else's fault. You're lucky it wasn't something worse. Everybody else is doing it. So-and-so saw me and didn't say anything. My other teacher said it was okay. This other guy told me to do it.
The more they try to explain and excuse their way out of it the deeper into trouble they get. The more lies they have to tell to cover up previous lies the more obvious everything becomes. What a sinister creep Dick Cheney is. So are his fellow travelers, people like David Addington, John Yoo, David Bybee and so on. They remind me of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his cabal. The world canot afford a United States of America run by people like that. It is time to clean out the rot--all of it.
2 comments:
What is so awful about this is even though Cheney continues to make his beliefs public, which is none of our business at this point, he is showing the world that it is ok to break laws. Not only break laws, but flaunt it, promote it, and continue to get away with it.
This makes me look to our present president to create justice, but unfortunately Obama believes we should simply move forward. Granted bringing justice to the issue would be a lot of work with many criticisms, (which, when the functionality our justice system deters us from bringing justice, we have a major problem!), how does Obama expect normal folk to follow the laws when he doesn't hold our previous leaders responsible!
Yes, the previous administration enjoyed their ability to "pick and choose" which laws they would keep and which ones they would find irrelevant. Does that mean we, (the common folk), get to act like children also and "pick and choose" which laws we'd like to follow? No, we are confined to the limits within our laws, within our justice system to watch the powerful get away with torture and continue to brag about it.
Yes, your first paragraph is the very heart of the matter.
Obama the politician is trumping Obama the constitutional lawyer in his public utterances on the subject.
Post a Comment