Prosecute Torture Conspirators Now

Update: Conason: If Dick Cheney believes he can prove that torture saved us from terrorist attacks, why does he oppose a full investigation?

Appealing to state power to set things right, for justice, is a political act just as defenders of torture say it is.

Listening to the words of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and this deplorable array of liars as they deny-defend-rationalize torture is a political act, just as doing nothing is a political act.

It's a high hurdle for state prosecution but it has been met.

We can't help the victims of American torture now, but we can help ourselves and make it more difficult for this to happen again: Prosecute the group of torture conspirators working under cover of state to inflict this crime.

But forget about a bipartisan commission. We need a commission of human rights advocates and rule-of-law adherents. We need Robert H. Jackson dedicated to Reason.

This is a historical moment for President Obama, a morally defining moment. Don't blow it!

From Frank Rich:

"Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to 'protect' us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from 'another 9/11,' torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality."

U.S. Torture Truth Commission Needed

In this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof calls for the establishment of a Truth Commission to document and investigate the human rights violations of the United States government under the Bush administration.

Kristof writes:

The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. ... Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.

Good idea on not prosecuting the perpetrators, as any rational accounting could sensibly hold most of us reading these words accountable. And that's not so realistic.

So, let's establish the Truth Commission and take the folks directly responsible for conceiving and carrying out the despicable American torture program: George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, David Addington, the whole stinking lot of them; subpoena the bastards, grant total immunity save the vow to prosecute any lie or half-truth left out under testimony.

As for Kristof's suggestion that we stack the proposed commission with military personnel--forget that, let's stack the commission with human rights activists, investigators, and journalists who have a demonstrated history of reporting on human rights violations.

Allan Nairn, human rights activist and journalist, would be the model.

Some resources on human rights:

- United States Constitution
- Fourth Geneva Convention (full text)
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Physicians for Human Rights Report on American Torture