What's the Big Deal?

I understand that while I was uploading old photos onto Facebook, some joker was on All Things Considered, going on about how we can't afford to take the time or the money to investigate tortures committed by the Bush administration. Have to move on, I suppose. This is like deciding that it isn't worth while to find out why little Dickie hung the neighbor's cat by its ears from the clothesline, or why little Donny shot out the neighbor's windows with his twenty-two, because it's more important to make dinner or to watch Lost. Pretty soon, Dickie and Donny are stealing cars and tormenting nerdy kids out behind the gym at school, and then they get to be real criminals.

Because make no mistake about it, if we as a nation sweep the Bush crimes, committed both here and abroad, under the rug because we're too lazy or afraid or "poor" to investigate, our criminals will be back with bigger plans, and the fact that they got away with it this time will set the same sort of precedent that was set in the Reagan administration, when Cheney and Rumsfeld found out that if they could just get back into power, no one was going to stop them from doing whatever they felt like.

This is how Republicans operate. They want power and they take it if they get a chance. They either don't understand laws or they don't respect them, so those of us who want to live in a lawful, decent world have to make sure that they feel the weight of the law. Those gun-toters at the town-meetings demonstrate what I mean. Their plan is not to discuss universal healthcare, it's to demonstrate power. They don't want to inspire respect in the unarmed crowds, they want to inspire fear. And they don't inspire respect -- there are lots of comments on blogs about gun-toters, and a good portion of them comment on the size of the weapons a man packs relative to his natural endowment. But they do inspire fear -- in their Congressional representatives and in the other people at the town hall meetings.

Respect and fear are two different things. The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others. So the rest of us have to communicate with them in a language that they understand, and until these torturers, especially those at the top, stand in the dock and look the law in the face, and know that they broke it and are going to be punished, they will not learn what they can and cannot do.

But, you say, our effort will be wasted. They'll get in their lawyers and their lobbyists and their apologists and roll us over once again. Maybe so. But I say even that is worth it, because we have to confront, once and for all, the question of whether this is a law-abiding nation or just another out-of-control oligarchy. The founding fathers would expect no less of us.

Comments

[MaraBG]

I agree with you completely. With each new revelation, it would be too tempting to just throw up our hands in frustration, and give up. With the death of Sen. Kennedy, and the words spoken by Vice President Biden at the next morning's news conference, I'm reminded why it is important to keep our idealism. "...It was never about him" It isn't about me.

It's about my grandchildren in California, and your grandchildren. The children at the market in Afghanistan, the children selling gum on the side of the road in Guatemala, the children in Bosnia, in Niger, North Korea. The children everywhere who the US has claimed to care so much about. We, as a nation, have claimed some sort of moral high ground, while we crawl the underbelly of human wasteland and deception.

It's time for us to show the world that we will keep our own side of the street clean. How arrogant we are to tell them what they should do right and wrong. What the Bush Administration did was wrong. If they don't pay, our children will in future GOP administrations. History repeats itself. Never forget.

[makeitright]

Karl Rove said: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously as you will- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do." 2002.

[makeitright]

Karl Rove said " We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." And while you're studying that reality-ju­diciously, as you will- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."

[neoprimordial]

So good to hear from you, Ms. Smiley, as always.

The beginnings of justice is the recognition of what is unjust, and at the heart of injustice lies the ignorance of what is just. The presidential oath is one of many that are taken once people take up a position or office in government. What did our president say when he took the oath?

"I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear
that I will execute the office of
President of the United States faithfully
and will, to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States,
so help me God."

"To the best of my ability," are the words here. The preservation, protection, and defense of the Constitution of the U.S. *requires* that he properly address this still extant criminality of the Bush administration regarding torture *to*the*be­st*of*his*­ability*, which would require a good deal more than he has provided to date. It is a gross, grievous injustice that *must* be recognized, prosecuted, and reconciled. To not do so is to profane what is sacred, and the sacred profaned will not go unanswered, as pearls before pigs. As you indicate, Ms. Smiley, if we don't punish them, they'll punish us, eventually.

Mr. President, please heed our words.

[Zeroes]

I see that the Rep & Dem are about even in breaking laws. We should have a new Declaration of Independence from both parties and start this country over. And to clarify...have new elections and remove all politians that are presently in Wash, D.C.

[Mason]

You are wrong. Democrats and Republicans are not "about even in breaking laws." That statement is a false Republican talking point that is absurd on its face.

Republicans committed war crimes and crimes against humanity on a massive and incomprehensible scale that is magnitudes of order more serious than anything the Democrats ever thought of doing, let alone did.

[liberalOrgonian]

The repubs have used fear for all the dirty, ugly, illegal, things they did during the Bush/Cheney years.
Fear kept us frozen, unable to think clearly. Unable to make rash and sensible decisions and clouded our judgment pertaining to our government's activities.
We have been brainwashed by years of this.
Wake up America, fear does not have to run our lives anymore.

[Penny222]

You go, girl! Isn't it interesting that the uber-Republicans (I'm not talking about the moderates--or is this an oxymoron these days?) wouldn't let the sexual behavior of a Democratic president go, while they want to sweep torturegate under the rug?

[Trubulmaker]

Oh, yes and yes again!

Jane Smiley for Attorney General!

[hwoodude]

It's called the "haves" and the "have nots".......i.e., with due respect to Senator Kennedy if I had been driving a car that went into a river after drinking alcohol and my passenger drowned while I - a have not - fled to a motel...guess what? I would have been arrested, tried, and jailed. Rich, powerful, white males are often exempt from "normal" law..Cheny, Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Rove, et al dance to a different tune, i,e, "fighting" for the Texas Air National Guard instead of in Viet Nam (Bush) and receiving 5 Viet Name deferments (Cheney) , a pardon for Wategate crimes (Nixon) and on and on. There are thousands of men and women serving horribly long sentences for minor drug offenses as are poor women who have shot men who were beating them. Guantanamo was devised as a prison without laws and rules....terror, torture and killing was used on men with no rights, charges, or lawyers....American soldiers died in battles with old and damaged equipment... millions of tax payers money was "given" to military contracters: these decisions and actions were by the "haves" , rich, powerful, well connected, mostly white men. Their criminal mistakes and indifference and arrogance caused many deaths of soldiers and civilians. If these "haves" are not investigated and held accountable in a court of law.....the "haves" will once again win! It's time to change..."Ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free!" Americans deserve the truth!

[elliott111]

Congratulations on a sensible and emotionally appealing article that teases out the truths of torture during the Bush Administration. What I like about this article is its bringing together the kinds of extremists that like to call the Republican party home and then how their leaders use power once in office. Republicans, corporatists, conservatives and their ilk like Democracy only if it produces for them. If it does not produce they would throw democracy overboard. And many would resort to violence. Like America has too often done overseas: we promote democracy so long as it produces people we want to see in office. Read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man or Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer. Or look no further than Chavez whose election was legitimate, unlike Bush 2000. And we on the left have seen our leaders murdered, assassinated or die in plane crashes and early cancer enough to know that the algebra of violence has not been an equal equation. The one thing that I would add is that all our readers need to re-read or read for the first time Robert Jackson's Preface to the Nuremberg Trials. In this and other documents Jackson defends the trials as being necessary to show the world how such atrocities could come into being so that they “never happen again”. The link: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/jack_preface.asp Torture is serious and has to be treated seriously. A serious investigation will get to the bottom of it.

[Praetorsilver]

Teeeheee!!!!

How stupid does the media think we are? We need websites to tell us that we need to stick to our perception of moral high ground?

What we apparently need the media to do is to tell us that while we are perching on our moral high ground assigning justice to our wrongs, we have to, MUST, apply those same standards in all our allegiances and partners.

and that brings us back to square UNO.

[lisaman]

Reagan is thought of by some as a great president because Iran Contra was not fully investigated. I have no doubt he knew that weapons were being sold to Iran. The same thing should not happen with Bush/Cheney. We need to know the truth, I want to know the truth and I want anyone responsible for war crimes, punished.

[paintpaintpaint]

This is right on the money.

[luckyt]

We are were we are today because of two hundred years of filtering the crimes of government under the rug. Beginning with the extermination of native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans and continuing with imperialist wars of expansionism. However, the most grievous of these wars have been started over the last hundred years under the policies of the industrial military complex and corporate profiteers that have been propagated by the Republican Party that they own and control with the help always of those that they find are corrupt in the Democratic Party. That holds true today with the Bluedogs, that hold our nation hostage and at the beck and call of the Republican Party.

[lambdin1]

Agreed, but it wil never happen. All one has to do is look at the financial businesses. They bilked billions out of the American people...No one ever went to jail. Look to the congressmen that have been found to be crooks and never went to jail...NEVER HAPPEN!

[mhazard]

Maybe it is time that we changed that now. Bush used the highest office in the land (Cheney used the second highest) to advance their agenda and to enrich the coffers of their cronies in the name of protecting their country. In the process of doing this, they lied to the American people continuously. They need to be called to account for their deeds.

[lambdin1]

True! And I would be the first to support such a change. But what and when will it ever happen? All the bastards need to be called to account for their crimes, I know I am when I do anything that even remotely resembles their crimes!!!